Angels with Bloody Teeth
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: Discovering a newly-turned Cold One, Angel takes it upon himself to train her to resist human blood as he begins a tentative path to redemption
1. The Discovery

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: This story begins in the early 1920s- I can't provide a specific date because we never learned it ourselves-; other relevant information will be provided later on

Angels with Bloody Teeth

In a distant field several miles from human habitation, a figure crouched in the grasses and stared out at the city before him, a grimly contemplative expression on his face that was at odds with the apparently expensive suit he wore.

The vampire once known as Angelus might have appreciated his time in America for the chance to get away from the memories of his life before he got his soul- it was hard enough adjusting to the fact that he could suddenly experience guilt for his crimes; he didn't need to face the physical evidence of his past sins in the form of the areas he'd been back in those days-, but there were times when he longed for the simplicity of conversation with someone else; he might not deserve human company, but that didn't mean he didn't miss having someone safe to talk to.

The problem was that there was nobody who _would _talk to him in his current 'condition'; most of his kind would kill him because of what he was if he could even bring his conscience to ignore what they did to feed, and virtually every other being who knew what he was would just look down on him because of the demonic 'pecking order' and his place on it.

He had made his choice to isolate himself for the safety of others, but would it be asking too much for him to have _someone _to talk to...?

A faint feeling of movement from behind him prompted him to glance back, but for a moment he failed to see any sign that someone else had been present until his nose detected a faint trace of a very distinctive scent in the air.

_Cold Ones_? he thought to himself in confusion, getting back to his feet and slowly making his way towards the source of the scent, his body tensed even as his curiosity forced down his natural instincts.

The two breeds of vampire might not have that much contact with each other, but he knew enough to be on the alert; from what he remembered of his time as Angelus, the Cold Ones were speculated to be affiliated with the original vampire demon, manifesting as a purer, stronger 'breed' of vampire without most of his kind's weaknesses at the cost of it being harder for them to blend in with the general public and a stronger thirst than the one he suffered from himself. The idea of one being anywhere near him might not be anything too serious given how quickly it had left after he'd sensed its presence- it was unlikely the Cold One had even been aware he was there, given that he'd been downwind of it-, but that didn't mean it wasn't puzzling...

Then his eyes fell on the source, and he couldn't help but stare in shock at the sight.

Lying on the ground in front of him, dressed only in a white robe that had clearly seen better days, was a tiny dark-haired girl with close-cropped hair, her body writhing in agony from what could only be the venom of the Cold Ones as it flowed through her system, the distinctive wound on the side of her neck all the evidence he needed to determine what had happened to her. Since the scent around her was already noticeably weaker than it had been earlier, she must have been left here by someone else- particularly since the blood still leaking from her neck suggested that she had been bitten only recently-, but that didn't answer any questions about _why _she was here...

As he stood there, staring uncertainly at the figure in front of him, a thought occurred to the watcher.

The Cold Ones were said to retain their souls during their transformation; the main reason they fed on human blood was the improved taste of it and the overwhelming thirst they felt as 'newborns' making it hard for them to control their urge to feed on humans.

Whoever this girl was, judging by her current solitude- and he wasn't going to even try and trick himself into thinking that this was something she'd wanted; nobody turned someone and then just left them out here like this-, she clearly hadn't asked for this to happen to her, which meant that she would wake up with a ravaging thirst that she couldn't understand and may not even be capable of controlling if she was left on her own.

Vampiric prejudices aside, he was more than what he'd been now, and whoever this girl was, she clearly needed someone to be there for her if her sire apparently couldn't or wouldn't take responsibility himself.

He might have turned Drusilla into a monster, but that was before he got his soul; wasn't it possible that the girl in front of him represented a second chance to shape a new identity to a more positive goal?

The vampire who'd once been known as Angelus crouched down beside the still-writhing figure and lifted her up in her arms, his enhanced strength barely even required for him to lift the small form despite her mutating physiology.

He just hoped that the house he'd seen earlier on his walk was as isolated as it looked; he was fairly sure that nobody lived there right now, but if anyone still owned the property, it might be enough for it to be considered a residence by the invitation rule that restricted his kind's activities...

Still, right now all he could do was hope for the best; if the house was indeed abandoned, it would make the perfect place for him to wait for this girl to complete her transformation and begin her lessons in her new way of life.

* * *

><p>AN 2: To clarify for those who might not know, the girl Angel's discovered is meant to be Alice shortly after she was turned and abandoned by the doctor who wanted to protect her from James; I got the idea for this plot after I noted that she only met Jasper in the fifties, which leaves a ridiculous amount of time for us to realistically believe that she managed to try and stop herself from drinking human blood while completely alone- particularly during the newborn years- with only visions that she may not have fully understood at first to show her that there was another way.<p>

AN 3: I have a plan for this story drawn up already, including some reference to what we know of Angel's activities between now and the Second World War, but if anyone has anything they want to suggest for him and Alice to encounter during this time frame, feel free to suggest it.


	2. Seeing a Name

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: We now jump about three days onwards from the previous chapter, just as Alice's transformation completes; I thought it best to cut to the chase

AN 2: To the _Twilight _fans, I hope my description of Alice as a newborn works

Angels with Bloody Teeth

Sitting silently opposite the mysterious woman he'd discovered, the vampire who'd once been Angelus wondered how much longer it would take for the woman before him to wake up.

He'd known that it would take time for the venom to pass through her system- he was just grateful that she didn't need to lie in earth or anything like that to properly 'wake up'; he'd never been fully clear on the finer details of turning others, but he'd gone along with tradition when turning Drusilla and helping her turn Spike, so he didn't like to take too many chances-, but he hadn't expected it would be this long; he'd been waiting for three days, only leaving occasionally to grad some food from the nearby forests- squirrels and rabbits weren't that satisfying, but he didn't want to risk tackling anything larger in case it fought back and he didn't get back in time for the girl to wake up-, and she _still _showed no sign of getting past her current pain...

Almost as soon as that thought had crossed his mind, however, she stopped moving, lying still on the ground before him for a few moments before she opened her eyes, looking urgently at the walls around her as she sat up on the floor where she'd been lying for the last few days. The blood-red nature of her eye-colour was a bit disconcerting at first, but from what he remembered of this species that would always happen after they were turned because of the human blood in their systems; he just hoped that feeding on animals like he was planning to teach her to do would have a slightly different effect on her irises.

"Easy," he said, holding both hands up in front of him as he looked reassuringly at the woman, trying not to flinch at the blood-red eyes as she turned to face him; he'd known what to expect from stories of the Cold Ones, but that didn't mean that it wasn't slightly unnerving to see the reality of the situation. "I know you've been through a lot, but-"

"You know me?" the woman said, looking at him with a sudden eagerness that was almost disconcerting.

"Uh... not _really_; I just found you in a field over there..." he said, waving a hand vaguely back in the direction that he'd found her before he took in the strangeness of that last statement. "Wait a minute; you didn't know that?"

"N... no..." the woman- as she slowly stood up, he noted that she was slightly older than the girl he'd thought she was initially, but not significantly so; she was certainly well-developed, but her small height meant that she could appear younger than that fairly easily, which might at least come in useful in the future. "I... I don't know... I can't _remember_..."

"Oh," he said, wondering if he should feel sorry or relieved about that. At least if she didn't remember who she'd been, he wouldn't have to worry about trying to stop her wanting to make contact with her old family before she was ready to be around humans, but that could also make it harder for her to be convinced not to attack humans if she had no memory of what it was like to be one...

"Do you... know what happened to me?" the nameless girl asked, looking uncertainly at him and drawing him away from his previous train of thought. "Why don't I...?"

For a moment, her voice trailed off as she spoke, her eyes suddenly assuming a glassed-over expression as she glanced upwards as though studying something only she could see.

"Uh... hello?" he said, looking awkwardly at her; he knew that her type of vampire couldn't sleep, but he'd never actually wondered how they coped with the issues their subconscious minds accumulated during their daily activities...

"Alice!" the girl said, her eyes returned to normal as she grinned at him. "I'm Alice!"

"You remembered?" he said, smiling encouragingly at her.

"No..." the now-identified Alice said, shaking her head uncertainly. "I... I was just thinking about how I could work out what my name was... and I _saw _myself saying that..."

"You saw yourself saying that your name was Alice?" he said, his mind flying back to his old experiences with Drusilla and her gift; he'd never seen his childe react to a vision in quite that manner, but there were various types of seers in existence...

"Yeah..." she said, nodding uncertainly. "It was like... I was trying to _decide _what my name was... and I saw it."

"Oh," he said, nodding slightly contemplatively as he looked at her. "I... see..."

"So," Alice asked, smiling slightly at him, "now that we've got my name out of the way, what's your name?"

"I'm..." he began, before he stopped himself; he wasn't going to call himself Angelus again, and he'd changed too much since the days when he'd gone by Liam, so what _was _he going to call himself?

"I'm... Angel," he said at last, smiling at her; it wasn't the kind of name he'd have used in the past, but it was the best he could come up with.

Besides... after Kathy had called him an angel in her last moments alive, it was... nice... to be able to use that name in a more positive manner than what he'd done with it so far.

"Good to meet you, Angel," Alice said, smiling back at him before she reached up to her throat, wincing slightly as she opened her mouth experimentally. "God... why do I feel so _thirsty_...?"

"Ah," Angel said, hoping that there wasn't anything human near enough to 'set off' Alice's senses before he had time to explain what had happened to her. "Well, that's a bit of a complicated story; in a nutshell..."

He paused for a moment, wishing that he could come up with a more delicate way of saying this before accepting that there wasn't one and just giving her situation to Alice directly. "You're a vampire."

Alice blinked.

"I'm a _what_?" she said, looking incredulously at Angel.

"A vampire," Angel repeated. "I found you in a field, realised what was happening to you, and took you-"

"Hold on; you _found me_?" Alice repeated, now standing up from the floor as she looked pointedly at him. "And what were _you_ doing around-?"

Deciding that a demonstration was going to be needed if he was going to make his point, Angel allowed his features to shift into his vampiric visage, his forehead elongating as he felt his fangs appear in his mouth.

"Oh God..." Alice whispered, her eyes widening in horror as she stared at him, her species' natural grace apparently forgotten as she stumbled back in shock. "You... you're-"

"A vampire?" Angel finished for her, smiling grimly as his features reverted to their human appearance; given Alice's potential power level, it was probably best to establish the truth about the current situation before she had the time to consciously process what had happend to her. "Yeah, for a while now; that's why I-"

"_Keep away from me_!" Alice screamed, suddenly charging at Angel with a speed that far surpassed anything that he had witnessed before in even his long life. Lacking the time to move out of the way, Angel relied on long-dormant instincts and grabbed Alice as she rushed at him, quickly manoeuvring her into a hold manoeuvre that would keep her down despite her strength.

"You've got the strength edge, but I've been doing this for years; you're not going to catch me out _that _way," he said, giving Alice a few moments of imprisonment to confirm that she couldn't get out on her own before he continued. "Look, Alice, I know what this must look like, but I'm not going to hurt you, and I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do; just hear me out, and if you want to leave after that, I won't do anything to stop you. OK?"

For a few moments, the two figures simply stayed motionless in the hold, their vampiric status rendering even breathing unnecessary, until Alice grimly nodded.

"All right," Angel said, relaxing his grip on Alice's arms slightly as he stepped back, although he kept a hand on one wrist in case Alice tried to leave again. "Firstly, as far as vampires go, we're each a different... breed of vampire; my type of vampire is more essentially demonic- what we are is shaped by a demon based on our body's memories rather than a conscious decision made on our own, we're affected by holy objects and burn in the sun-, while the kind that you are have greater physical strength and retain the essential essence of who you were before the transformation, although you apparently still give away what you are when exposed to sunlight."

"I... give away what I am... in sunlight?" Alice said, looking uncertainly at him for a few moments, Angel allowing her a moment's silence to take in what she'd just learned before she continued the conversation. "Do you know... how?"

"Not immediately, sorry," Angel replied, shaking his head apologetically. "When I was trying to learn more about your 'breed' of vampire in the past, I was more focused on anything that might impact the amount of damage that your kind could do to me in a fight; since I tend to stay underground when sunlight's an issue, I figured I'd never be in a position where that would be relevant to me."

"So..." Alice asked, her tone clearly apprehensive as she moved on to another topic, "if we're... vampires... does that mean...?"

"We drink blood?" Angel finished for her, nodding grimly at her question. "Normally, yeah, but we don't _have _to; as I said, you're still essentially who you were when you were alive, and I regained my soul and the ability to choose a few years ago for... reasons that this isn't the time to go into."

"You... regained... your soul?" Alice repeated, looking slightly sceptically at him. "In other words... you're the _only _vampire of your 'kind' who doesn't want to kill humans... and you just _happened _to find me?"

"I _know _it seems like a stretch, but I promise you, it's just a coincidence; all I want is to try and help you learn what you are without killing humans in the process," Angel said, holding up his hands as he looked reassuringly at her. "I promise you, you're totally free to leave me if I do anything to suggest that I'm going to start killing people like other vampires do, but right now your instincts are going to be practically screaming at you to go after fresh human blood if you get too close to them for the first year or so you spend like this, and then we've got all the other issues like blending in without anyone realising that you aren't human- assuming you want to go that route; it's your decision in the end-"

"Uh... right..." Alice said, holding up both hands in a halting gesture as she smiled slightly teasingly at him. "You're a... bit of a talkative guy, huh?"

Despite his usual grim mood, Angel was almost shocked to hear himself chuckling at Alice's query.

"Not normally," he said, shrugging slightly. "I've... been on my own for the last couple of decades- it's hard to really find the opportunity to socialise when most of the people you meet just want to kill everyone and you don't-, but..."

He shrugged as he looked at her. "I guess you bring that out in me."

"Well, at least I know I've accomplished _something_ with my presence here," Alice said, smiling at him for a few moments before she assumed a more curious expression. "So... when do we start those lessons you mentioned?"

Despite the grim mood of the topic- no matter what way you tried to phrase this, talking about training to drink blood could never be a pretty topic of conversation-, Angel smiled at Alice's thought.

"This isn't going to be easy," he said, looking grimly at her. "I mean, we're talking about trying to resist your natural instincts; you get up close to a human while you're in these early stages, and _everything _in you is going to want to feed..."

"I don't _want _to feed on humans, Angel," Alice said, looking resolutely at him, Angel only able to pick up the slight fear in her stance thanks to his long experience at dealing with other vampires; she might be stiller, but it wasn't that hard to make the necessary mental adjustments. "I don't know who and what I was... but I do know that I don't want to kill people."

"That's a good start," Angel said, smiling hopefully at her.

He might have very little idea about what he was trying to accomplish right now- it wasn't like he'd seen a newborn of Alice's 'breed' in action, so he had no way of knowing what she was going to be capable of if she was really trying or if he'd even be able to stop her if she started doing something she'd regret-, but at least Alice's attitude made it clear that he'd made the right choice in recovering her.

* * *

><p>AN 3: OK, I've got a couple of plans for what Angel and Alice will experience while they're together, but if anyone has anything that they'd like to see, let me know and I'll see what I can do.<p> 


	3. The Kiss of a Mentor

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: Another short jump onward from the last chapter, this one takes place a few months after the last one (All subsequent time-jumps will skip over longer periods of history to focus on some relevant moments in Angel and Alice's interaction)

AN 2: Not entirely sure about this chapter, but it marks an event in Angel and Alice's relationship that I felt needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later

Angels with Bloody Teeth

As he crouched alongside Alice as they took up position alongside one of the many trees in the forest that was their current residence, keeping a careful eye on their surroundings, Angel had to admit that, as difficult as the last few months had been, he had actually rather enjoyed the challenge of keeping Alice under control.

While Alice herself had been willing and able to accept Angel's 'rule' against drinking human blood, her natural instincts had been far more difficult to overcome, her body starting out with a natural craving for human blood even if she'd never tasted it herself. On more than a few occasions they'd had to deal with a close call where a couple of passing hikers had proven to be too great a temptation for her senses. Angel had managed to stop her once or twice, but her natural strength had resulted in Alice overpowering him to claim a few human victims before Angel could effectively subdue her, although neither of them had sustained any serious damage during these minor scuffles.

Alice had been left feeling guilty about what had happened after she'd regained control of herself, but Angel had assured her that she couldn't blame herself; natural instinct on this scale was something that was going to be tough to overcome, particularly when they were starting from scratch given that Alice didn't even have any personal memories of human interaction to help her maintain her focus. They'd taken a few items of clothing from the hikers to both conceal the evidence and provide Alice with something else to wear aside from the hospital gown she'd been discovered in- Angel didn't feel comfortable going into town to get Alice anything just yet-, but even after Angel's best attempts to wash it, Alice could still detect the slight scent of her old victims on it.

Alice had admitted to Angel that the scariest part of her attack on humans was that she had actually enjoyed the taste more than she had enjoyed the taste of animal blood, but Angel had again passed it off as natural instinct taking control of Alice in her weaker, inexperienced moments. Angel sometimes worried if he was striking an effective balance between accepting Alice's mistakes and letting her get away with too much, but he figured that, so long as he focused on making sure that she didn't start considering it acceptable to feed on humans, he was achieving what he'd set out to do.

Working out how Alice's visions worked had been tricky, of course- they had sometimes stopped her from going after any humans in the vicinity, but that wasn't a reliable thing, and their ability to see anything of Angel's future was shaky at best-, but Angel had eventually determined that, unlike Drusilla's more generalised visions, Alice's ability to see the future was based around the decisions that people made, and even that seemed to be limited so far to anything that she and Angel decided to do (Angel had already made a mental note to work out what else she could see once he could trust that she wouldn't start attacking people if he took her into a crowded area).

The most difficult part of their new dynamic had been adjusting to Alice's inability to sleep and Angel's need to do so, even if he could manage on comparatively less than the average human. While getting Alice to agree to stay in their small hut rather than hunt on her own wasn't that hard- Angel had fortunately picked up a few basic books and other reading material over his years of wandering after he acquired his soul, which at least gave her something to do when he was asleep-, they couldn't control the possibility that something might happen to attract Alice's attention while Angel was unavailable to stop her. They'd eventually decided to deal with the situation by remaining inside the cabin during the daylight hours with Angel locking the door and keeping the key on him at all times; even if Alice could break down the door relatively easily, the delay required for her to do so was often enough to give her time to realise what she was doing.

Still... as much as Angel enjoyed being a positive 'role model' for someone else after all the vampires Angelus had sired and trained, he wished that he had a better idea of how to figure out whether or not he was actually accomplishing anything with his attempts to train Alice to control her thirst.

He hadn't taken responsibility for the young vampire because he believed that it was going to be easy to 'train' her to resist human blood- he still had trouble when he was in close proximity to a fresh corpse despite his own experience-, but this was really starting to get ridiculous. They'd been at this for months, moving from one location to another every time Alice had an 'accident' and attacked a human to escape detection, and Angel still had no way of knowing when Alice would reach a point where he could be sure that she wouldn't start attacking humans if they went out in public.

No matter how much he might try to keep her under control, the fact remained that he just didn't _know _enough about her type of vampire to have a clear idea about that kind of thing; he could try to approach it as though he was just dealing with a stronger, more stable version of Drusilla as much as he liked, but the fact remained that he was practically flying blind with this whole situation-

The sound of a breaking twig as something walked near them drove Angel's mind back to the present, his nostrils flaring as he took in the scent of the creature near them, relaxing as he registered that it was only a deer; fast enough to give Alice a bit of a challenge, but nothing she needed to have moral issues about eating.

Glancing over at Alice, he nodded in approval as she looked curiously back at him, Alice subsequently charging towards the deer as Angel followed close behind her. Alice was faster than him in a straightforward race, but she lacked sufficient control over her reflexes when moving at particularly high speeds, allowing Angel the chance to catch up with her when she had to slow down to make turns around trees or other obstacles. After a few moments of running, Angel and Alice finally fell upon the small herd of deer that they'd discovered, Alice swiftly tearing into the necks of two of the deer while Angel began to feed on a third, Angel allowing himself to relax as they began to feed (It might not be human blood, but the size of the deer was a pretty effective compensation for the slightly poorer taste)...

Just as Alice was tearing at her third deer's throat, she suddenly stopped what she was doing and stood straight up, her nostrils flaring as Angel stopped feeding, his own nose quickly detecting the scent that had attracted Alice's attention.

_Humans_.

Yet another group of hikers must be passing by their current location; the problem with Angel's lack of local knowledge was that he had no way of knowing what routes would be more heavily populated than others, and he couldn't even risk heading into a city to find out that kind of information on his own in case Alice's instincts caused her to slip up without him there to keep an eye on her.

For a moment, Angel tensed himself in preparation to try and stop Alice's imminent charge towards her natural prey, but then he looked at her more directly and noted the tension in Alice's stance. She was definitely _aware _of the humans' presence in her vicinity, but even with the obviously feral expression on her face, Angel could see that she was actively resisting the urge to simply start charging towards the scent, her body so still that she was clearly resisting the urge to make any kind of movement in case she made the wrong move after she'd started.

Finally, after a few moments of stillness, Angel reluctant to make any kind of move himself in case it prompted the temporarily feral-level Alice to move himself, the scent of the humans faded, leaving the two vampires staring at each other as Alice blinked and seemed to come back to herself at last.

"Oh God..." she said, shuddering slightly as she looked at the other vampire. "_That _was _way _too close..."

Whatever she was about to say was stopped as she took in the proud smile on Angel's face as he looked at her. "What?"

"Alice," Angel said, letting his pride in her show as he stared the younger vampire. "There were humans over there, and you _stopped_."

Alice blinked.

"I did?" she said, looking uncertainly at him, clearly wondering if he was trying to encourage her opinion of herself by lying to her.

"I wouldn't do that," Angel said, shaking his head as he smiled reassuringly at her. "You were aware of them, but you didn't actually go after them; I wouldn't recommend we take you out into a busy city yet, but we might be ready to start going in close to investigate a few houses and give you a more direct opportunity to practise-"

Angel's reply was cut short before he could finish when Alice suddenly grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him towards her, her lips meeting his in an enthusiastic but obviously inexperienced kiss for a few seconds before she pushed him away again, her eyes as wide as his as they processed what had just happened.

Angel wasn't sure what was going to be more problematic in Alice's current state; the fact that they'd just kissed, or the lack of reaction he'd felt to the kiss in question.

"So..." Alice said after a moment's awkward silence, her initial enthusiasm apparently pushed aside by the realisation of what she'd just done. "That... happened."

"Yeah... yeah, it did," Angel confirmed, nodding at her in an equally awkward manner before he waved a hand awkwardly in the direction of their small hut. "Look, we've eaten, we've already had one close call with those hikers, maybe we should... go somewhere more private?"

"To talk, right?" Alice asked, her tone suddenly urgent.

"Just to talk," Angel confirmed, nodding reassuringly at her.

"Cool," Alice said, smiling awkwardly before she turned around and ran back towards the cabin at her top speed, leaving Angel to hurry after her as quickly as he could, the deer forgotten behind them as they ran. For a moment, Angel enjoyed the temporary simplicity of the pursuit, all tension and awkwardness forgotten by the sheer simplicity of the 'need' to return to their home, but this race quickly came to an end as they walked through the door of their hut- Alice retaining the lead as always-, leaving them to stare at each other in silence as their opportunity to delay this conversation came to an end.

"Well..." Alice said, looking awkwardly at him for a few moments before she finally spoke. "Look, I appreciate everything you've done for me, and I'm perfectly willing to stick around if you want me- I don't even know where I'd go if I _wasn't _here, really-, but if that... well, if the kiss gave you any ideas-"

"The only idea I got was that _you _wanted something I wasn't willing to give you," Angel said, smiling reassuringly at her, relieved that neither of them had gotten the wrong idea about what the other one wanted. "I mean, I like you, but it's more a... well, an older brother thing..."

"Older brother to a sister who can kick your ass in a straight-out strength-based fight?" Alice asked, awkwardness forgotten as she smiled teasingly at him.

"Hey, whatever keeps you safe," Angel replied, before he looked more solemnly at her. "Whatever you might have thought at any point, I didn't take responsibility for you to get laid, Alice; I decided to help you because I wanted to make sure you had the chance to explore the kind of choice I never had myself. If you wanted more..."

* * *

><p>"But you don't," Alice said, looking at the vampire who'd taken her on with a still-awkward smile, increasingly relieved that he'd so neatly disarmed her worst potential fears about the potential consequences of her recent mistake. "And... I don't."<p>

Somehow, the simple confirmation of that fact helped Alice feel a lot better about her current situation.

She'd had faith that Angel wasn't going to hurt her once she'd had time to reflect on what she did remember- what vague memories she thought she'd recalled from her human life hadn' been comforting, but aside from the obvious pain she'd felt while she was transforming, the few days she'd had before she regained consciousness actually seemed to have gone by fairly smoothly-, but there'd still been a part of her wondering if he'd saved her just to have a bed-mate- even if she didn't actually sleep- once she'd regained consciousness.

To know that he really _didn't _have any expectations like that when he could easily at least try and encourage her to explore the possibility of something between them...

"You're a good friend, Angel," she said, smiling reassuringly at him, grateful to be able to say the words that she'd been trying to find the right opportunity to vocalise, "but you're just... I don't see myself marrying you."

For a moment, Alice paused as she said those words, a brief flash of a young, pale-skinned man with long blond hair flashing in front of her vision, but she shook that off; she didn't know that man and this wasn't the time to start focusing on unusual visions that she barely understood at the best of times anyway.

"You OK?" Angel asked, looking uncertainly at her.

"Oh, I'm fine; just... had a moment; nothing to worry about," Alice said, smiling reassuringly at Angel before swiftly moving on to a less awkward conversation topic. "So, now that we've established I _can _resist humans, does that mean we'll be going into a town soon?"

"Maybe later," Angel said, shaking his head as he grinned thoughtfully at Alice, obviously aware of her attempt to change the conversation but willing to go along with it nevertheless. "I'd like to get in a _bit _more practise before we take you into a town; maybe we could try going a bit closer to a few walking routes or something..."

Alice might be making a mental note to analyse that last 'vision' of hers in more detail when Angel was asleep- somehow she had a feeling that she'd be meeting that man she'd just seen in real life sooner rather than later-, but for now, as she sat opposite the vampire with a soul and discussed strategies to increase her tolerance and resistance of human blood, she could think of nowhere else that she would rather be.

* * *

><p>AN 3: Well, hope you enjoyed that, next chapter sees a jump forward of a few years to a certain fight Angel had in the 1920s (It was mentioned in the show but we never saw it even in a flashback)<p> 


	4. A Fight in Mexico

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: Here we are; Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in the mid-1920s, as Angel and Alice reflect on their lives together and experience a very particular confrontation (I wasn't able to write the fight in its entirety, but I hope what I came up with works)...

Angels with Bloody Teeth

As they sat drinking in a bar- or at least, Angel was drinking; Alice, who had come to the bar for the social opportunity, just took the occasional sip and switched glasses with Angel occasionally to stop people noticing that she wasn't drinking herself-, Angel had to admit that he was really rather enjoying Alice's company.

He'd been coping relatively well when he was on his own after regaining his soul, of course, but there was something nice about having someone else with him, even if they didn't get to spend much time in the more appealing parts of America. They'd spent a couple of fairly comfortable months in Chicago, but Angel had panicked and left after a woman had tried to flirt with him- he was getting better at social interaction, but that kind of possible meeting took things a bit further than he was comfortable with-, prompting them to relocate here instead.

Ciudad Juárez might be a stereotypically violent town, but at least it meant that not many people would be interested in spending any more time there than they had to, which meant they wouldn't do anything to draw attention to themselves or others. Its cross-border status also meant that people didn't tend to stick around in the city for longer than was strictly necessary, given that most of them were trying to sneak into America, which allowed Angel and Alice to remain in the city for longer as it was less likely that people would notice anything odd about them.

They'd even found a convenient home close to the manufacturing industry that served as the town's main source of income. Given that Alice didn't need to sleep, it was relatively easy for her to help ensure that Angel had somewhere quiet to stay in the house that would also be shielded from the sun, Alice subsequently dealing with daytime visitors that they received while Angel rested, the vampire taking on a few night shifts at the factory to provide them with a basic source of income.

In the end, however, Angel didn't consider any of Alice's physical advantages over him to be part of the reason why he liked having her around; he enjoyed her company simply because he enjoyed her company. She might be a bit cheerful for a vampire at times- taking pleasure in a successful kill didn't exactly qualify as 'cheerful' in Angel's book, which was the closest any vampire he'd encountered in his past had come to being 'cheery'-, and she had a surprising interest in shopping that was forcing Angel to dig a bit deeper into Angelus's past accounts than he liked- he'd only kept a few financial resources in various cities to ensure that he had enough to support himself for a while, neither identity wanting to stay anywhere long enough to attract attention to the fact that they didn't age-, but that aside Alice was a pleasant person to talk with.

Angel had even shared some of the more interesting non-murder-related stories from his past as Angelus that he'd felt she would enjoy learning about; his run-in with Mary Shelley on the night she wrote _Frankenstein _had particularly fascinated Alice after she'd read the book, although his encounters with Dracula had also amused her once she'd read Stoker's tale of the count in question.

Alice might not have many stories to share with him in return yet, but Angel was determined to give her as many memories as possible to make up for the ones that seemed to be gone forever, which had given them another reason to keep up their habit of regularly relocating from one city to another. They'd done what they could to unlock whatever might be in Alice's mind, but Angel wasn't confident enough in his magical abilities to attempt a spell to probe Alice's memory, and without access to a more experienced magical practitioner that both of them felt could be trusted, they were pretty much stuck in terms of anything else that they could do.

Still, Alice's lack of memories of her human life aside, things had been going well for the two so far. With Alice's self-control improving rapidly as she grew used to the taste of animal blood- it was relatively low-quality, but it helped to sustain her anyway-, they had spent time visiting various locations in America, each of them taking on the occasional temporary work to finance their current lodgings. This last was even easier with the discovery that the consumption of animal blood left Alice's eyes a golden colour rather than the red that they had been earlier; while still almost unnaturally vivid compared to human eyes, it at least attracted less attention than the alternative.

They typically posed as siblings when they had the chance to do so, although occasionally they exploited Alice's short stature to pass her off as Angel's daughter in locations where two siblings travelling together might have seemed strange (Both of them were agreed that they would never pose as a married couple after their last kiss, as it would feel too strange, unless they absolutely _had _to). Currently Alice was working as a waitress in the night shift at a bar near their most recent apartment- the current bar was just somewhere they went to in order to unwind and avoid attracting attention to the fact that Alice didn't eat-, and Angel did some occasional work as a courier for a nearby delivery company; his knowledge of the local sewers gave him access to quite a few short-cuts that nobody else knew, and he was generally able to avoid getting anything too smelly.

"So," Alice asked, smiling casually at the other vampire as she 'sipped' at her drink, occasionally glancing around the deserted bar to make sure nobody was paying too much attention to them, "see anything interesting during today's work?"

"Just the usual crowd; nothing important," Angel replied, nodding back at Alice, shaking his head slightly at the memory of the occasional demon he'd found in the sewers. Aside from a random vampire trying to make an escape in those tunnels- he'd taken to killing those fairly quickly; he didn't want to attract attention to himself or Alice, but there was a difference between avoiding trouble and ignoring it when it happened in front of them-, the only things down there were the occasional 'tame' demon, mostly those demons unable to take human form. "But then, you probably knew that already, huh?"

"Due to the lack of blankness, anyway," Alice confirmed, nodding at her friend with a casual smile, Angel's long experience with her the only thing allowing him to see the slight tension in her stance at the memory of those moments where she 'lost sight' of him.

While neither of them had yet been able to determine the source of Alice's 'flashes', they had been able to work out, through a process of trial and error, that Alice could only 'see' the future based on the decisions people made, with her visions changing as people made decisions to try something else, and even then she was limited in whose decisions she could predict. She could predict what humans would do easily enough, which at least made it easier for her to let Angel know what cover story would work best when looking for somewhere to stay or when they should leave their current residence, but even after spending the last few years training she still sometimes had trouble 'seeing' what Angel was going to do, and she was at a complete loss when it came to predicting what other demons or supernatural creatures would do even if she knew them well.

While he'd stressed from the beginning that he didn't have much experience with seers, Angel had speculated that this was a result of Alice being unable to essentially 'get inside their heads' as she had nothing to use to predict what the demons or vampires were doing to do. She had been human, so she could predict what they'd do based on some kind of memory of how she'd react if she'd been human, and Angel was a type of vampire even if it wasn't the same as her species, so she could 'see' him if she tried hard enough- Angel wondered if their long time together helped to account for that particular twist as well-, but she'd never been a demon and therefore her power couldn't 'predict' what they'd do.

It wasn't Angel's best theory, he freely admitted, but it was the closest he could come to account for the gaps in Alice's abilities; it wasn't like information about seers could be found in just any old shop, and Drusilla hadn't exactly set a comfortable precedent for him even if he was confident that Alice's visions weren't going to drive her insane since she had some control over them...

"Hey," a man in a long cloak of the kind that should have gone out of fashion some years ago suddenly said, breaking Angel's train of thought as he walked up to the vampire's table with a slight stagger that made it clear that he was drunk, "what's all this about?"

"Excuse me?" Alice asked, conversation forgotten as she looked at the man, the slight tension in her shoulders all that Angel needed to see to know what they were dealing with; whoever this man was, he wasn't entirely human.

"Come on, hottie like you sittin' around with _this _guy?" the man said, letting out a slight chuckle as he pulled up a chair and sat down alongside Alice, looking at Angel in a manner that somehow expressed disdain despite the fact that Angel couldn't see his face. "Bit too good for him, aren't you?"

"I happen to like him just fine, thank you very much," Alice countered, shifting her chair slightly as she glared at the man, her eyes briefly appearing far darker than normal in the manner that Angel recognised as Alice suppressing her anger.

"Thanks," Angel said, smiling briefly at Alice- given their species' tendency to avoid each other, it was also nice when Alice said something like that- before he turned his attention back to the speaker. "Look, why don't you just go-?"

"I think I'm entitled to pay a compliment to the lady, vampire," the creature said, glaring over at Angel despite his obviously drunken condition.

"And I think that, given that you're 'complimenting' my friend, I'm entitled to make an objection if said attentions are unwarranted," Angel said, tensing himself slightly as he prepared for whatever was going to happen next; he might not know what this creature was, but he'd seen enough drunks even when he was alive to know when things were going to get ugly, and this situation was definitely not going to be pleasant.

"Hold on..." the creature said, pausing for a moment as it looked between Angel and Alice for a few moments, in a manner that Angel felt sure would be accompanied by a contemplative expression if he could see its face, before it turned to look back at him. "If she's what I think she is... thought your kind and her kind didn't hang out much?"

"That's the thing about life," Angel said, standing up as he glared at the demon. "It can throw some interesting curveballs."

"Like this senorita hanging around with something like you?" the demon said, chuckling slightly as it looked at him. "Never thought anything would have that kind of bad taste-"

Roaring in rage, Alice suddenly got to her feet and grabbed at the demon's arm- she rarely took insults well even now, and the fact that she couldn't see this guy's future if he was as non-human as he appeared would only make it worse-, hauling him off his feet and slamming him into the wall, her hands pinned to his throat as the hood fell away to reveal grey skin marked with lines that looked like scars.

"_Never _insult Angel-!" Alice began, only to be cut off with a scream of pain as the demon punched her in the face, sending the younger, smaller vampire staggering back in shock as she clutched at a cheek that suddenly seemed to have been fractured by the force of the blow.

Angel didn't stop to think about the implications of fighting something powerful enough to damage Alice's almost rock-like skin; leaping over the table, he grabbed the other man's cloak and threw him to the floor, ramming his head against the ground before hauling him back to his feet and heading for the pub's nearest door.

Alice might be more durable than Angel's 'breed' of vampire, but that didn't mean that she was totally indestructible; that last attack was _really _going to take her some time to recover from, if the cracking sound Angel had heard as the demon's fist struck her was anything to go by, and it would be best if she had some time to recuperate without worrying about this guy.

On the bright side, while he was obviously physically tough, this guy didn't seem to have much in the way of sophisticated combat techniques; it might just be because he was drunk, but he seemed to be having trouble doing anything particularly sophisticated in this fight, even if he was still almost disturbingly strong. So long as Angel could keep him on his toes, and avoid engaging in _direct _combat- placing emphasis on his speed rather than raw strength-, he should be able to find some way to defeat his enemy...

* * *

><p><em>Dammit...<em> Alice reflected to herself, clutching at the crack on her cheek from where she'd just been punched as Angel forced the demon that had just attacked them out of the door. _I _really _need to work on my fighting skills_...

She might be physically stronger than Angel, but they'd spent so long working out how to control her thirst and her visions that combat was something they just hadn't explored as much as they should; in the early days, keeping her physical prowess limited had obviously been a necessity to ensure she couldn't hurt Angel, and since then they'd just been trying to avoid attention rather than work on combat training.

Even if Alice was going to spend time with Angel, she didn't want to be _completely _dependent on him...

"What the-?" one of the bar staff said, walking over to the table to look urgently over at Alice even as she occasionally glanced anxiously at the door that Angel and his opponent had just left by, forcing Alice's attention back to the present; worrying about future combat training wouldn't be relevant if she and Angel attracted too much attention to themselves now.

"They've got... stuff... to sort out," Alice said, hoping that the hand over her cheek was concealing the worst of the damage from the other woman as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her wallet, laying it on the table so that she could pull out a few notes with one hand. "Just take this for the bill; I'll... I think I've got enough to cover the damages as well."

She knew that she was probably being a bit too casual with their finances- she was working on using her powers to monitor the stock market to give them a few investment ideas, but it was hard to work out whose futures she should look at when dealing with a system that depended on that many people-, but it was the best way to avoid attracting any questions right now; hopefully nobody would be interested in trying to find out more about the people involved in this fight when all the damage it had caused here was settled this quickly.

It wasn't a perfect plan, but that was all that she could spare the time to think about right now; she had a bad ache in her jaw and she needed to drink something if she was going to repair the damage in time to be of any use to Angel in this fight.

* * *

><p>Wincing as she clutched at her damaged cheek a couple of hours later, Alice allowed herself a relieved smile as she felt the bone beginning to knit back into shape; the local rat population might have taken a turn for the worse- and she vaguely recalled a couple of cats, although they'd definitely been homeless judging by what she would recall of their fur-, but she had finally drunk enough animal blood to help her body repair itself from the damage that demon's blow had done to her.<p>

She'd hated having to leave Angel like that, but a glance into his future before she'd retreated into the sewers had confirmed that he would be able to hold his own against his current opponent for the time she needed to get herself back into shape; she might be physically stronger than him, but with an obvious vulnerability like the damage she'd sustained earlier, she would have only been a liability to him if she'd tried to help him without taking the time to heal herself.

If she could just find him...

Then she walked around a corner from the alleyway that contained the manhole cover she'd climbed out of- the city didn't have much in the way of sewers, but what they did have would have stunk even without her enhanced senses-, and found herself looking directly at Angel, battered but clearly still existing as he lay on the floor of the alley, his opponent having vanished.

"Angel!" Alice said, her surprise at this discovery forgotten- maybe her power had subconsciously directed her here or something; it wasn't like she knew _that _much about her abilities, after all- as she hurried over to crouch down anxiously beside the man she would always consider her sire even if biology had made them distinctly different species of vampire. "Are you OK?"

"Battered... but I'll be fine," Angel said, wincing as he stood up, one hand going to his side as the other rested on Alice's shoulder, bruises obvious on almost all the exposed skin that Alice could see along with a few cuts around his face. "Lucky the guy still had _some _kind of honour..."

"Honour?" Alice repeated incredulously, momentarily worried that Angel had sustained brain trauma during his recent beating. "He beats you half to death for the past three hours because of something _he _started, and he's _honourable_?"

"He stopped the fight because the sun came up," Angel clarified, indicating the other end of the alley where they currently stood, the sunlight blazing down onto the rubbish bins at the edge of the alley a short distance from the two vampires. "Apparently it would have been too easy to take me out with such an obvious advantage, so he called it off and left."

"OK, that's good to know; any chance we could just... get _home _now?" Alice asked, placing Angel's arm around her shoulder as she looked urgently at him. "I know that sunlight won't hurt me, but even if we need to move on before that guy finds us again in case he wants to finish the job I'm still not interested in letting other people see what I look like in daylight."

"Fair enough..." Angel said, wincing slightly as he walked, but eventually looking at her with a reassuring smile. "Just... give me a day or two to heal up- he'll probably take that long to recover himself, and it's not like he knows where we live anyway-, and we can be out of here."

A part of Alice felt slightly sad that they were moving on already- not having any memories of her own home, she had become attached to the places they stayed at when they were together-, but at the same time she knew that Angel had a point; sticking around to let that guy find Angel again wouldn't be a smart decision.

Maybe they could find somewhere in a more central city next time around; Alice _had _been interested in seeing what life was like in somewhere like New York...

* * *

><p>AN 2: I know the fight could have been longer, but considering that Boone said the fight lasted for three hours- Boone was a demon who appeared in the episode "Blood Money", in case you didn't know; he helped Angel trick Wolfram &amp; Hart out of some money they were planning to steal, but then set up events for another fight between them as a 'second round' match in the Hyperion Hotel so that he could know for sure whether he or Angel was the better fighter after he abandoned the fight recorded here-, I didn't have the patience to write out <em>all <em>of that fight; I hope my compromise was effective.


	5. Preparing to Crash

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: A shorter, more history-based chapter here, set towards the end of the 1920s; you'll guess the relevance of that when the time comes

Angels with Bloody Teeth

Looking around the house that had been their home for the last few months, Alice had to admit that she was going to miss this place.

Montana might not be the most vampire-friendly climate, given the lack of shade for she and Angel to hide in, but they'd been able to make a living of sorts here in Missoula, working during the few hours of darkness when normal humans were less inclined to do anything, helping out as night security for a few local businesses (Although Alice freely admitted that her willingness to take the job in the first place helped her more than anything else; she might have a few interesting skills but she definitely didn't _look _like she could put up much of a fight if things get ugly).

Of course, their current financial freedom was mainly owed to the fact that Alice had learned how to use her abilities to 'foresee' the turn of events that the stock market would take in the immediate future. She and Angel had invested most of their money under false names to prevent them from attracting too much attention- one person investing in too many successful stocks might have attracted more interest than they wanted-, and Alice was even keeping an eye on the stock prices in the newspapers to help her remain up-to-date., occasionally drawing on their accounts when their pay proved to be too little to cover the rent, although their occasional hunting trips supplanted the need to get much in the way of food, particularly since Angel was the only one of the two of them to really need any kind of food aside from blood and even that was mostly for variety's sake.

Despite her experience with this new method of sustaining their finances, it was also the reason that they had decided to leave at this time. For the past few weeks, Alice had been receiving increasingly strong premonitions that the stock market were about to experience something particularly bad, and considered it important to get out of the city so that they could safely sell or buy a few stocks before whatever was about to happen would happen.

"You ready?" Angel's voice asked, breaking into Alice's train of thought as she glanced over at the door, Angel standing there with a casual smile on his face and dressed in his usual long coat and wide-brimmed hat; it wasn't much of a disguise, but it helped Angel walk around when it was later in the day so long as he took care to position himself so that the hat was always between him and the sun.

"Just about," Alice confirmed with a smile, indicating her packed bag. "Just taking a quick peek over today's paper in case there were any significant changes I should know about, and there aren't, so I'm ready to go when you are."

"Good to know," Angel said, smiling back at the young vampire he was starting to think of as his 'sister' before he indicated the door. "Come on, let's go."

As they walked down the stairs, Alice smiled at the sight of their landlord, George Kincaid, standing by the door, a smile of his own on his face as he looked at them. Their contact had been brief, but George had always been very willing to accommodate Angel and Alice's slightly unusual requests for daylight privacy, not even asking for extra money or any kind of reason why they preferred to stay in during daylight hours. They'd even shared meals with him on a few occasions- Alice had tended to limit the amount she ate; she was getting the hang of eating to blend in, but it was still an unpleasant process for her-, and had generally found him to be good company, with an optimistic outlook on life that they had always appreciated.

"You're on your way, huh?" he said, shaking hands with Angel as the male vampire stood at the door.

"Yeah, we are," Angel confirmed, nodding back at the other man reassuringly. "Thanks for te rooms; we appreciated them."

"Trust me; I appreciated the company just as much," George replied, nodding back at Angel before he turned to shake hands with Alice, his usual smile becoming even warmer. "Same to you, li'l lady; if you ever feel like you want to-"

"Change your investments," Alice said, staring urgently at George as she took her hand away, the momentary blankness of a vision clouding her face before

Grabbing a piece of paper, she paused for a moment and then began to write, occasionally scribbling over something she'd written earlier to change it to say something else, until she finally nodded in satisfaction and handed the list to George.

"Sell some of your current shares to buy shares in these, and you should be fine," she said, looking resolutely at the man in front of her, in a tone of voice that made it clear that she would accept no attempts at argument or disobedience. "Do it _soon_, OK?"

"Uh... sure thing," George said, nodding slightly uncertainly at Angel and Alice as he took the note, looking in a bemused manner at the short woman before him.

"Great," Alice said, smiling broadly at him, leaning over to give him a brief kiss on the cheek before she walked out of the door, shrugging on her long coat and gloves as she did so, leaving Angel to nod briefly at George once again before he hurried out after his friend.

"What was that about?" he asked as he fell into step beside Alice, the sun on their backs as their coats and hats protected them from the worst of its rays.

"Something... _big _is going to happen," Alice said, looking back at Angel with the slightly lost expression that Angel had come to associate with those moments when Alice didn't understand what her visions were telling her even if she knew that they were important. "I just... I know George doesn't have much in the way of investments, but I knew that I _had _to give him that advice if he was going to keep anything..."

"Ah," Angel said, nodding in understanding before he smiled slightly at her. "So, just to be on the safe side, don't use the names we had here for a few years in case he wonders how you gave him such good stock advice, huh?"

"Well, some of them might not be that good- the stock market isn't _that _predictable, after all-, but I admit that staying undercover wouldn't be a bad thing," Alice confirmed with a smile of her own, before she shrugged and looked hopefully at Angel. "So, that's Missoula over and done with; any ideas where to go next?"

"Just... get to the train station and take it from there, I guess," Angel said, shrugging slightly as he looked at Alice with a smile. "What else are a couple of non-human-feeding vampires to do?"

It was a simple statement, but as Angel and Alice walked, they both had to acknowledge the accuracy of that statement.

When your instincts tell you to kill, and your conscience tells you not to, what else could you do but struggle along and hope that everything would work out in a manner that would allow you to live with yourself the next day?

* * *

><p>AN 2: Short, I know, but I thought it worked; I've got a more original chapter planned for the next one that I hope will meet with your approval<p> 


	6. The Vampiric Vampire Slayers

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: As promised, a longer chapter with a more immediate threat, and I include a fight scene into the bargain (It gets a bit bloody towards the end, but I didn't feel that it was 'extreme' enough to merit upping the rating); hope you like it

Angels with Bloody Teeth

Sitting back in her chair on the outskirts of their current house, Alice had to admit that she was really enjoying the peace and quiet.

After her last few stock investments had paid off even through the stock market crash a few years back- Alice still couldn't believe that things had become that bad for the rest of society; it was amazing how wrong things could go sometimes-, the two of them had decided to take some time away from the cities for a few months and had found a nice area with an uninhabited house a short walk away from anywhere near a coastline.

The new house was a fair distance from any other residence, but it was still close enough to the local wildlife to give them both some options for food- Angel had admitted that he was enjoying the variety when it came to finding meals now, even if Alice had a feeling that his instincts still preferred human blood no matter how much he denied them-, and the house itself was comfortable enough to provide them with the human necessities that made their existence more relaxing.

Currently Angel was off having a quick hunt for something to 'eat'- Alice tended to go out alone these days as she gained better control of her instincts, coupled with the fact that her sheer speed made it easier for her to stay unnoticed and go after more interesting pray, although she kept anything particularly large that she found so that Angel could have some of it himself-, which gave Alice time to relax and catch up on her reading...

Suddenly, Alice froze mid-sentence as an unfamiliar-yet-familiar scent reached her nostrils; the same scent she had grown used to noticing whenever she hunted, but with some subtle differences that she had never sensed before.

It was vampire venom.

More specifically, the vampire venom of another vampire of her 'breed'; the scent it created was fairly distinctive, and certainly stood out more than any of the other vampires that Alice had ever encountered (Whether because this one was her 'species' or because the venom was simply more powerful, Alice didn't know).

Quickly putting her book away in the house- Alice didn't know what was about to happen, given that the other vampire's thoughts and decisions seemed to be uncertain, but she was rather enjoying the novel and wanted to limit the risk that it would get damaged before she could finish it; they might be comfortably off, but she didn't want to draw attention to herself and Angel unless she had to-, Alice tensed herself as she waited on the house porch, with her patience being quickly rewarded as the source of the new scent approached the house.

Even after almost twenty years with Angel, Alice had yet to encounter another example of her 'breed' of vampire; Alice didn't even need to see the red eyes of the new visitor to know that her 'track record' had just been broken.

"Hello," the other vampire said, his shoulder-length dark hair and slight Italian accent adding to the edge of danger Alice felt as he walked towards her, even without his significant size advantage over her taken into account. "I haven't seen you around here before."

"I'm... fairly new," Alice replied, trying to sound more relaxed than she felt; Angel had given her some pointers on holding her own in a fight, but if her speed was average she didn't feel entirely comfortable going up against something like her for her first attempt at solo combat (Given that this vampire's eyes were red, Alice thought it best to be prepared for the worst, given that she doubted they'd have that much to agree on given their obvious differences in terms of dietary choice). "My friend and I just moved here recently-"

"You _moved _here?" the other vampire said, raising an eyebrow thoughtfully as he studied the house. "As in, you're staying in one place?"

"It's comfortable and I like it," Alice replied, her body tensing slightly as she noticed the other man's scepticism at the idea; she'd known that she would be different from other vampires as she didn't drink human blood, but the idea that she'd be so different as to attract this kind of sceptical attention from another vampire just because she stayed somewhere had never occurred to her. "What do you want?"

"Oh, just passing through and thought I'd see who the new arrival was," the man said, grinning slightly as he looked at her, a contemplative expression on his face as he spoke that Alice was ashamed to admit left her feeling slightly curious; human-blood-drinking aside, he _was _the first vampire of her species she'd ever met. "So, where's your friend?"

"Right here," a more familiar voice said, Angel walking up from the woodland path he'd used to hunt earlier, an unreadable but firm expression on his face as he looked at the other vampire.

"Hold on a minute; you spend time with _that_?" the vampire said, indicating Angel with a scornful wave of his hand, his earlier appearance of casual curiosity dismissed in favour of more explicit distaste.

"Angel isn't a 'that'," Alice said, glaring at the other vampire more firmly now; she'd been willing to give him a chance earlier, but his abrupt dismissal of Angel had cost him whatever points he might have gained. "He's my friend."

"You consider _this _a friend?" the vampire said, rolling his eyes as he looked at Alice with a smile that Alice was shocked to realise was meant to be seductive even if the eyes detracted from that effect for her. "Trust me, that _thing _has _no _idea how to show you what _real _vampires can do; if you're interested, I could show you how to have a _very_ good-"

"I have a feeling I know what you'd consider a 'good' time, and you can forget it; I'm _not _going to follow your diet," Alice said, shaking her head firmly as she glared at the vampire; if this man was the typical example of her species- and, given that her 'sire' had abandoned her to fend for herself, she had no reason to think otherwise-, she could only be grateful that she'd been found by someone who bothered to fight his instincts rather than give into them because it was 'easier' to abandon humanity. "I'm fine where I am, thanks; your offer is appreciated, but unwelcome."

"Aw, c'mon, don't be like that; I'm sure I've got _something _I could offer you-" the vampire said, reaching out towards Alice with one arm, only to find himself halted as Angel's hand suddenly closed around the vampire's wrist.

"Alice _said _she doesn't want to go with you," Angel said, glaring resolutely at the other vampire despite the tension in his body demonstrating the strain he needed to exert to keep his opponent's arm immobile. "I think you should accept that."

"And let her stay with _you_?" the vampire said, rolling his eyes scornfully as he looked at Angel. "You haven't even been letting her feed properly-"

"I happen to prefer _not _eating humans, actually," Alice said, looking scathingly at the vampire. "Angel just helped me get control of my instincts back when I started out, but he didn't force me into anything; I chose this diet of my own free will."

"Oh, you can't know how _good _they taste until you've tried-" the vampire began with what was probably meant to be an encouraging smile.

"I did that once or twice while I was starting out, actually; how they taste doesn't change the fact that it's wrong," Alice interrupted, staring scornfully at the vampire. "We _were _human once, and we can still think; as far as I'm concerned, the fact that we can both think means we shouldn't treat them as food just because we're not like them biologically any more."

"Oh, really?" the vampire said, moving his arm as though he was about to try and throw Angel off- most likely intending to give Alice a more forceful demonstration of the 'merits' of accepting his offer-, only for Angel to beat him to it. Before his opponent could realise what he was about to do, Angel yanked the arm he was holding rapidly downwards and punched the other vampire in the nose as his head was forced forward, wincing as his fist met his adversary's stone-like face even as the nose practically crumpled under the sheer force of the punch.

* * *

><p>"You <em>dare<em>-!" the other vampire began, staggering back slightly as he glared at Angel, clutching at the crumbling mess where his nose had once been in shock.

"Yeah, I dare," Angel said, ignoring the throb in his hand as the bones tried to heal themselves- he was probably going to need to re-break the damn thing after this mess was over if he was going to make sure his hands healed properly- in favour of staring his opponent down. "And I'll do a lot worse than that if you don't leave Alice alone; how often does she have to say 'no' for you to get the message?"

It might not be the smartest decision Angel had ever made- he was out of practice in fighting and it wasn't like he'd ever fought any other Cold Ones apart from Alice in their occasional practise spar, and he knew as well as anyone that those didn't count as an actual _fight_-, but that didn't matter right now; the girl who was the closest thing he'd had to a sister since Kathy was in danger, and he was _going _to help her.

Roaring in rage and the pain of his nose- it seemed to be trying to repair itself already, but the force of Angel's punch had left it too damaged for the nose to put itself back together properly-, the vampire charged at Angel, moving so quickly that Angel only just managed to grab his foe's outstretched arms and use his momentum against him to throw him into a nearby tree.

Taking advantage of the momentary break in combat, Angel took a quick assessment of what he'd seen of his foe so far. This other vampire was clearly physically stronger than him- the mere fact that he was a Cold One proved that-, but at the same time he didn't seem to be putting much thought into his combat strategy; Angel wouldn't be surprised if this guy had always relied on his sheer strength to win a fight rather than anything more sophisticated. So long as Angel kept on the move and focused on out_think_ing his opponent, he should be able to pull this off-

As the other vampire charged towards him again, Angel tried a new strategy by leaping over him, only for this attack be met with only partial success as the other vampire hit his legs before he could get them out of the way, even if Angel managed to complete his original plan by striking the vampire in the back as he jumped. With both of them forced to the ground, Angel tried to scramble back to his feet, but the other vampire's raw speed proved to be too much for Angel, as his opponent grabbed Angel by the back of his brown jacket and hurled him over his head to hit the ground. Reaching over to the side, the vampire grabbed a branch and thrust it into Angel's chest, only for the weaker vampire to roll away just enough so that the branch impaled him in the side rather than the heart. With his opponent momentarily distracted at Angel's lack of disintegration, Angel wrapped his arms around the vampire's neck and rammed his face into the ground beside him, leaning on the vampire to get back to his knees before he resumed his grip on the vampire's head.

For a moment, Angel tried to pull his opponent's head off, but this endeavour was abandoned when the other vampire's teeth managed to sink into his arm, leaving Angel roaring in pain as he felt the venom burn through the blood around the arm; it might not be able to actually infect him, but it wasn't exactly pleasant either. Releasing his grip on the other vampire's head, Angel tried to pull his arm free by diving off to the side, but the strength of his foe's grip meant that all he received for his trouble was a near-dislocated shoulder before a blow to the head sent him reeling, the vampire releasing his grip on Angel's arm simply to let him fall to the ground.

Before the other vampire could make another attempt to stake Angel, Alice leapt onto his back, grabbed a hold of the other vampire's forehead, and yanked it sharply backward. The unexpected additional force of Alice's presence was enough to send him staggering despite her small size, with his surprise being replaced by a mangled roar of rage and pain when Alice managed to get a hand under his head and literally tear her opponent's jaw off. His tongue flopping stupidly over his neck as venom gushed from the wound, the vampire could only let out half-screams of pain before Angel took a firm grip on his head and tore it from his shoulders, Alice quickly assisting him in removing the vampire's arms and legs before the body could do more than flail about at random.

"_Damn_..." Angel said, wincing as he tenderly examined his dislocated shoulder; he might have forced it back into position, but that could still smart even with his enhanced healing.

"So..." Alice asked, looking uncertainly at the body before her, its limbs still twitching slightly even if they seemed unlikely to be capable of anything in their current state. "What do we... do with them?"

"From what I remember hearing, the only way to really... well, _kill _a Cold One... is burning the body," Angel said, looking uncertainly over at Alice. "I get that you might not be comfortable-"

"He wanted me to leave you to 'enjoy' a diet I have no interest in and no desire to experience," Alice said, shaking her head as she glared firmly at Angel. "Don't you _dare _imply that you think I might have been happier with him just because he's my 'species', Angel; as far as I'm concerned, he got what he deserved, and I don't care _how _he dies just so long as he does."

"Right," Angel said, nodding back at her in brief understanding before he indicated the house. "Well, I've got some matches in there; just give me a moment to find them, and we can call this fight finished."

Despite the grim mood of the situation they'd only just survived, Angel couldn't help but smile as he walked back into the cabin.

He'd just defeated a _Cold One_...

OK, so Alice had helped, but that still wasn't something the average vampire of his breed did every day; even with a soul, he still had it.

* * *

><p>As her vampiric 'brother-from-another-species' walked off to get the aforementioned matches, Alice could only stare at the mangled remains of the first other vampire of her race she'd met for as long as she could remember, and shuddered at the thought that his presence had brought to the fore of her mind.<p>

How she might have turned out if she hadn't been lucky enough to be abandoned close to where Angel had been staying had always been an abstract philosophical idea, but to be faced with the reality of what might have been in the form of their recent attacker... the idea that, if things had turned out differently, she could have been like _that_...

If she'd been physically capable of it, it would have made Alice feel sick.

She might be curious about her kind, but she could _never _learn about them from something like _that_...

A brief flash crossed her eyes once again- it looked almost like a family of five, three men and two women, except that their pale skin and golden eyes marked them as animal-drinking Cold Ones, followed by a vision of a single vampire with a haunted expression that reminded her of Angel-, but Alice shook that off; she had been getting that kind of 'flash' for a while now, but until she understood what it meant she wasn't going to pursue it any time soon.

Maybe that 'family' of vampires would be important eventually- she understood so little about how her ability _really _worked it was hard to be sure-, but right now Angel was all the family Alice needed or wanted; after everything he'd done for her, she wasn't going to leave him based on an ambiguous vision.

Right now, they had a vampire corpse to dispose of; anything else would be something to worry about later, if it ever became something to worry about in the first place.

* * *

><p>AN 2: To answer in advance, this vampire was just a random vampire of Alice's race rather than anyone she might have encountered in canon; as I said in the first chapter, this story is mainly intended to explore how Alice was able to abstain from human blood prior to meeting Jasper and the other Cullens, rather than an 'AU'.<p>

AN 3: With that done, next chapter will see an altered take on certain canonical events, as Angel and Alice are 'enlisted' to aid the war effort...


	7. Doing Their Part

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: I present to you my take on the events of "Why We Fight" (The flashback portions of it, anyway, since for obvious reasons I can't feature Lawson's return to Angel's life in the present); hope you like it

Angels with Bloody Teeth

As Angel and Alice sat in their current apartment- it was relatively basic, but with housing concerns the way they were they preferred the simplicity of an apartment over the complications of something more private-, Angel sipping at a glass of blood while Alice just read her latest novel as music played in the background, they had to admit that they weren't that badly off by the standards of the time.

Their current residence wasn't as comfortable as it could be, but given that the war effort meant that space was a luxury few people could afford, neither of them had felt entirely right taking a larger flat that would have offered more in the way of creature comforts when Angel had tolerated worse conditions and Alice didn't need to actually sleep in the first place. As it was, the hotel staff didn't ask too many questions about why Angel wasn't enlisted- they generally exploited Angel's natural reluctance to talk with too many people to claim-without-saying that he had been injured in some way that rendered him unfit for long-term military duty-, and Alice's presence with him was also tolerated without too many questions being raised.

Even Alice had been surprised at how quickly events had degenerated into war after Hitler had put his plans into action- the choices that had led to these events had happened too quickly for her to clearly follow them in her visions, particularly since so many people had tried to appease him-, which had been one of the reasons she'd decided to start spending a few weeks away from Angel to better 'experiment' with her ability. They had speculated at times that Alice's inability to properly 'see' Angel's future might have affected her powers, but they had never been confident enough in Alice's ability to last on her own without succumbing to her instincts before now; the length of time since her last 'slip-up' had been more than enough for Angel to feel that she was ready to go out on her own. They still met up again to travel together for several months after their initial parting, recognising that the other was still family no matter how unorthodox they were, but they were becoming more comfortable in their ability to be independent of each other even if they preferred to be in the other's company.

However the world changed, barring some unforeseen accident, the two of them could have an eternity to look forward to, secure in the knowledge that they would always have at least one constant friend...

Thoughts of the future were cut short when the door to their hotel room was suddenly kicked down, a large hammer striking Alice in the side of the head before she could get out of the way as another two men knocked Angel over the table just as he was standing up from his chair. As Angel leapt to his feet, he briefly registered Alice scream in pain as another hammer-blow struck her leg, apparently causing serious damage to her left knee before another man walked in behind the first wave that Angel only now registered were pointing stakes at him and what looked worryingly like flamethrowers at Alice.

"All right, calm down! Calm down!" the man said, Angel quickly noting the star-shaped pins on the man's khaki shirt underneath his leather jacket as he turned to look at the male vampire. "Now, when I say "calm down," I'm talkin' to you, of course. These guys I want wound good and tight, case you don't feel like listenin'. Sit down, son. We need to talk."

A quick glance at their surroundings was all Angel needed to confirm that his options were limited whatever he tried to do to escape even without Alice- not that leaving his whimpering 'sister' in this condition was an option as far as he was concerned-, leaving him with no other perceivable choice but to sit down and listen to what this man had to say.

"You ever considered joinin' the war effort?" the man said as he sat down opposite Angel, one of his men turning off the radio that had been playing in the background.

"No," Angel replied with a brief shrug.

"Well, that's a shame," the man who was increasingly obviously a member of the military said, his tone not-quite-implying that he knew Angel's reasons for dodging the draft. "Times like these, we can use all the able-bodied men we can get."

"I'm not a man," Angel said, glancing at the stakes and weapons in the hands of the other men. "I guess you already knew that about us."

"Everybody's gotta do their part, that's all I'm sayin'," the man said. "Doenitz has been kickin' the holy hell out of us in the Atlantic. Allies are losin' up to 100 ships a month to his u-boats. Their damn submarines are faster, stronger, and more powerful than anything we've got in the water. Say what you will about the Krauts, them sons-of-bitches know how to build a boat. Up till now, we haven't had much luck figuring out what makes 'em tick, but two days ago our boys managed to capture what appears to be a T-class German-prototype submarine."

"That's... great news," Angel said, wondering both what this had to do with him and why Alice hadn't foreseen it happening...

Then again, now that he thought about it, Alice had admitted that she couldn't see things too clearly when dealing with people she'd never met, and this entire situation was completely unprecedented; it was possible that the fact that Alice had never imagined something like this could happen had prevented her from seeing it happen in the first place.

Of course, other possibilities were that these people had only decided to 'contact' them relatively recently- thus preventing Alice's power from essentially 'picking them up'; they'd spent so much time staying hidden that they hadn't really spent much time experimenting with using her power to predict possible dangers from people they didn't know-, or some kind of spell could have been involved, but Angel wouldn't focus on that right now; the fact was that the men were here, they'd taken Alice by surprise, and he'd just have to deal with it.

"Yes it is," the man replied grimly, looking down for a moment before he refocused his gaze on Angel and continued speaking. "Unfortunately, when they were bringin' it back here, something went wrong. Late last night, we received fragments of a distress call. Something was on that ship. Have you ever heard dying men screaming for their lives, Angel?"

"'Course he has," one of the other men said with a smirk, this man possessing a thin head that seemed at odds with his broader shoulders and long dark blue suit and coat, as though someone had stuck the wrong head on top of the body.

"He doesn't... do that... any more..." Alice growled, wincing at the pain in her all-but-shattered knee even as she supported herself on her hands while she glared at the speaker.

"What he does or doesn't do doesn't matter right now," the original speaker said. "What matters is that that sub's stuck in hostile territory, but we need it if we're gonna win this war. It's down too deep to send divers. Pressure, cold'd kill a man..."

"But... those aren't problems for you two, are they?" the man in black said, looking between the two vampires as he walked towards Angel. "You've been on our radar for a while, Angelus."

"_Angel_," Angel and Alice said firmly.

"Oh, right, you have a _soul _now and you're training _her _not to feed on humans," the man in black said, sounding slightly amused at the thought as he looked between Angel and Alice before he became more serious once again. "I represent a fairly new agency, the Demon Research Initiative- got some little vision-deflecting trinkets as well, which is how we managed to evade your girl's talent-, hence why I'm here; we think you might be the solution to our problem."

"And... if we say no?" Angel asked, testing the waters; if it was just him to consider, he might have tried for a more explicit defiance, but with Alice's current condition taken into account that wasn't really an option.

"We don't particularly care," the man in black replied. "The way we see it, right now your girl's leg's in no state to be doing much, it'll take her a while to get back to normal even if we let her feed, and in any case, we strap enough weight to you both, you will sink, regardless of your interests."

Angel didn't bother pointing out that, if they moved fast enough, he and Alice could kill both of these men and accelerate Alice's healing by a considerable amount; judging by how prepared they'd been so far, he had little doubt that they'd have men on all available exits to this building ready to catch the two of them if they tried to escape that way.

They might not be _incapable _of killing humans these days, but that didn't mean that they'd want to deal with that much blood on their hands, particularly when some of them might just be doing a job at the moment, and there were the innocent lives on the sub to consider...

"We need that sub," the first speaker said, exchanging a brief glance with the man in black before he continued, "and we need you to deal with... what's on it."

"We had our intelligence investigate the submarine's cargo manifest," the man in black said; the mere fact that he brought something like that up suggested that Angel wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

"We think we know what attacked our boys," the first speaker said, opening his briefcase and taking out a red file that he subsequently handed to Angel.

Glancing over the papers before him, Angel groaned inwardly.

_Vampires being used for Nazi research_...

Honestly, like Hitler and his ilk didn't have enough arrogance issues trying to control the natural world; now they wanted to control the _super_natural?

Still... as much as he hated their methods of enlistment... he couldn't deny that these guys had a point; he and Alice _were _uniquely suited to deal with that kind of situation (Even if he definitely disagreed with their decision to attack Alice like that; she, at least, might have been willing to hear them out if they'd just visited, given her more social nature even if was still careful to maintain enough of a distance to stop people realising that she wasn't human).

They'd spent so long hiding away from everything; maybe it was possible that they could actually use their abilities and their consciences to guide them in making some kind of positive impact on the rest of the world?

The circumstances of their 'enlistment' might not have been ideal, but the possibilities it presented _were _encouraging...

* * *

><p>As he and Alice sunk rapidly to the bottom of the ocean a couple of days later- each now dressed in simple black shirts and trousers, even if Alice's now-healed legs in those tight trousers had drawn some attention from the men on the boat around them despite their knowledge of her true nature-, Angel took care to keep on breathing out; the pressure issue might not be an actual danger to their health given the strain he and Alice could endure, but that didn't mean that their lungs couldn't be damaged by a rapid shift in pressure as the air within them changed in volume...<p>

Still, at least Alice seemed to be enjoying the experience; she might not be keen on the chains and weights attached to them, but she'd been so enthusiastic about the chance for a deep-sea-dive that she'd actually jumped off the boat shortly before they reached the drop-off point so that she could have a brief 'walk', leaving Angel to jump after her before any of the men watching them could do anything about it.

Regardless of the fact that he and Alice had been forcibly enlisted, Angel had to admit that most of the people they'd met on the boat hadn't been too bad; a few of the senior officials definitely hadn't liked having them around, but some of the younger soldiers had chatted with both of them relatively comfortably, with Alice even attracting some interesting attention from some of the younger ones...

Thoughts on their travels to reach this point were cut short as they reached the sea bed with a solid thump. Angel glanced around himself in frustration for a few moments- he could make out Alice fairly clearly thanks to her pale skin, but otherwise it was a bit difficult; his eyes were adapting to darkness, but the water made things more difficult- before he finally saw a large form in the distance that was almost certainly the submarine.

With their destination identified, Angel took Alice's hand and they began to walk towards the submarine, dragging the weights on their ankles behind them as they made slow progress towards their destination. Alice took a brief break as they walked to grab a couple of fish as an experimental snack, but the distaste she expressed after swallowing what blood she could get from them made it clear that fish were even less appetising to her than the animal blood she had been able to eat on land, and they quickly continued their progress towards the sub.

After reaching the large object, the two vampires felt their way along the side, occasionally hitting the hull to confirm that it had stayed secure without any punctures- Angel tended to do that part; Alice's strength meant that she ran the risk of damaging the sub if she hit it too far- until they found the torpedo tubes towards the front of the sub. Clambering up the basic ladder on the side of the sub to reach their destination, each of them crawling into one tube each and making their way to the end, past the basic hatch used to keep the sea out when the tubes weren't in use, water draining out of the narrow space as they each began to impatiently tap out a Morse code message on the small metal doors sealed at the end of the tubes.

After a few moments of waiting and banging impatiently, the two hatches were opened, allowing the two vampires to take in the sight of five young men gathered around the room, four dressed in blue jumpsuits- one man had what looked like dried blood on his, although the only sign of injury were some small cuts around his face- and a fourth man in a fawn shirt and trousers (There was also a man in a black suit and glasses at the back, but the red band on his army clearly marked him as a member of the SS, so he was most likely here just because they didn't have anyone to spare to keep an eye on the prisoner).

"Hi," Alice said, as she and Angel crawled out of the tubes, Alice taking the opportunity to try and shove some of the water out of her hair while Angel stared down the group of men now aiming pistols at them. "We're... here to help."

"You wanna tell me how anyone gets 400 feet down without so much as a dive suit?" a young man said, ignoring Alice's offer as though she hadn't even spoken; his attitude suggested that he was in a position of authority on the sub, even if his age also implied that he'd assumed that authority because nobody else was available to do so.

"Which one of you is Captain Franklin?" Angel asked, deciding to tackle the obvious issues first.

"Captain's dead," the young man who'd spoken earlier said.

"Who's in charge?" Angel asked, keeping his voice firm and in control; he just hoped that whoever it was had been senior enough before the accident to know the codes that he was about to use.

"Suppose that'd be me," the man said, confirming Angel's earlier assessment of him.

"Under naval op 4-0-7," Angel said- he still couldn't believe that he was doing this; he'd gone from staying out of this whole war to being granted access to military secrets in what felt like no real time at all-, "I'm supposed to issue you your order: Charlie Baker Oboe Victor."

"Verification," the man said, briefly lowering his gun before he raised it again, refusing to allow his momentary relief to dull his resolve before he had confirmation that the authorisation was accurate.

"Nautilus," Angel replied.

"Yes sir," the young man said after a moment's pause, holstering his gun as the others followed his cue. "All right."

"Great," Alice said, smiling warmly at the men as she indicated the weights still attached to her legs, as though the entire incident with the guns being aimed at them had never happened. "Could someone help us get these things off, please?"

Judging by the slightly stunned expression on the faces of the men as they looked at Alice, Angel wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't fully registered that she was a woman earlier- her short frame and hair didn't exactly _scream _femininity at a casual observer when she wasn't wearing a skirt-; he just hoped that nobody would try anything stupid just because she was probably the first woman they'd seen for a while (It was a cynical view, he knew, but he had to prepare for the worst in a situation like this; this _was _a pretty unprecedented turn of events, when you got down to it).


	8. The Baddest of the Bad

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: A couple of areas have been skipped over, but in general I've tried to focus on what's relevant and been altered by Alice's presence; hope you like it

Angels with Bloody Teeth

As he walked through the corridors of the submarine, Alice immediately alongside him as they talked with the crew, Angel just hoped that they wouldn't have to spend any more time down here than they had to; the damn sub might be relatively spacious, but he'd never liked being trapped ever since he woke up in his coffin.

"We're all that's left," the apparent leader of what remained of the crew said, the rest of the crew disposing of Angel and Alice's weights shortly down the corridor. "An ensign, a helmsman, handful of petty officers... afraid we're not much, not against them."

"What's your name, ensign?" Angel asked, after taking a few moments to take in the surroundings; the cramped conditions of the submarine would be a problem in a fight, but Alice was fairly sure that she and Angel could adapt if things turned ugly so long as she in particular took care not to do too many spinning attacks.

"Lawson, sir," the younger man replied. "Sam Lawson."

"OK, Lawson," Angel said, his eyes briefly indicating the other surviving crewmembers before turning his attention back to the other man. "Keep everyone in this room; lock it up tight."

"Don't worry about us," Alice said, holding up a hand as she looked at Lawson with a reassuring smile; his almost-made decision to offer them a gun was appreciated, but also unnecessary. "We have a fair idea what we're up against, and we can handle it."

For a moment, Lawson looked sceptically at Alice, clearly doubted that anything her size could handle whatever was inside the other compartment, but he finally nodded in acceptance- as Alice had predicted; evidently the circumstances of her arrival here made up for her appearance- and stepped aside.

"Don't open this door for anyone but us," Angel said, looking firmly back at the ensign as Alice climbed through the door.

"Yes, sir," Lawson said, nodding in firm understanding at the vampire as Angel walked through the hatch, which was subsequently sealed shut behind them.

"Ready for this?" Angel asked, as he looked over at Alice; even if he knew that she was strong enough to cope with most things that might be down here, that didn' stop him from feeling worried about her.

"Well, they can't be any harder than the last vampire we fought," Alice said, smiling reassuringly at Angel before she turned her attention back to the hallway before them, trying not to pay too much attention to the empty bunks around them; knowing that people had already died here was bad enough without seeing the evidence of the number of people who hadn't made it. As they approached the hatch at the other end of the hallway, Angel undid the door locks at their side before stepping back as the central wheel turned before the door finally opened, revealing a new figure whose lack of heartbeat meant that he could only be a vampire, with a long face and slicked-back dark hair, dressed in a black leather coat with a swastika on his arm.

"Angelus," he said, retreating back to the other side of the door as he looked contemplatively at Angel- judging by his initial forward momentum he'd been intending to lunge at whoever was on the other side before he realised that it was one of his own species-, leaning casually on his knee while he stood in the door, a dead man just behind him. "They'll let anyone in here."

"Spike," Angel replied, which at least provided Alice with a name; Angel hadn't shared many details about his life pre-soul with her, but Spike's name was at least a familiar one even if the implications it carried weren't pleasant.

This was the first time she'd encountered anybody who'd known Angel when he was Angelus, which meant that her ability to act at this point would be vital; she couldn't afford to do _anything _that would give way that the vampire alongside her wasn't who he had been...

"Of all the bloody faces I expected to see down here," Spike said, grinning back at the older vampire as he turned to walk into the corridor behind him, leaving Angel and Alice to follow him.

"You're a Nazi?" Angel asked, his gaze briefly flicking to Spike's arm.

"What?" Spike asked, looking down at himself and realising that Angel was looking at the swastika on his arm with a slight smile. "Oh, no, I just ate one. So... they got you too, eh? You and...?"

He paused as he looked over at Alice for the first time, his eyes widening in shock as he took her in. "A _Cold One_?"

"She was abandoned by her sire shortly after he bit her; I thought having her around could be useful, so I took her in," Angel said, shrugging dismissively; if Alice hadn't known Angel as long as she had, the easy way in which he reverted back to the relatively uncaring persona of Angelus would have almost intimidated her. "What are you doing here?"

"Nabbed me in Madrid," Spike said, shaking his head with a frustrated frown on his face at the memory. "Sneaky bastards, the SS. Don't ever go to a 'free virgin blood' party; turns out it's probably a trap."

"You were captured at a 'free virgin blood' party?" Alice said, looking incredulously at the other vampire; Angel had mentioned that Spike wasn't the best when it came to forward-thinking, but the idea that he hadn't suspected anything in a situation like _that _was almost ridiculous.

"I know; who'd have thought?" Spike asked, shaking his head as he looked at the other two vampires with a slightly grim smile. "One minute, I'm asking a fella why all the virgins look like Goebbels; next minute, I'm stuck in a box on this cursed ship."

Shrugging nonchalantly, Spike turned around and began to walk back down the hallway that he'd just come from, leaving Angel and Alice to follow him as he continued speaking. "I feel better knowing they got you, too, though I can't say I'm surprised. From our company, it looks like they're rounding up the baddest of the bad; must've figured that the girl was something since she was with you."

"You're going to have to introduce us," Angel said, exchanging a brief glance with Alice as they walked; if the other vampires here were as bad as Spike implied, this wasn't going to be easy, so going along with the assumption that Angel was still Angelus was probably their best chance of getting through this whole situation without any more death.

"'Course," Spike said, glancing back at the other two as he paused in front of another hatch. "But I've got to warn you, they're a bit stiff."

Opening the door before him, Spike waved Angel and Alice into the next compartment- judging from the panels around them, Alice guessed that it was the control room-, where two other men stood, each one easily identifiable as vampires even without Spike's introduction. One man was dressed in a red outfit that gave the impression of a late nineteenth century European aristocrat, with a pointed beard and a significant amount of excess weight around his waist that Angel didn't often see in vampires, while the other was bald with pointed ears, greyish skin and long sharp fingernails, with a hunched posture and thin wisps of white hair around his ears; evidently the second one was an older vampire than the average breed.

"Oh, Angelus, this is Nostroyev and the Prince of Lies," Spike said, indicating the more human-looking one and the ancient vampire respectively. "Nostroyev, Prince of Lies, this is Angelus and..."

"Alice," Alice clarified for him, keeping her arms folded as she tried to project the same cold intensity that Angel was presenting to the other vampires; all she had to do was remember the arrogance that the vampire she and Angel had killed had 'projected' and she should be fine.

"Alice," Spike repeated, smirking slightly at the other two vampires, evidently trying to give the impression that he'd known about Alice already and was silently mocking the fact that they hadn't.

"Angelus," Nostroyev said, his accent somewhat Russian as he studied Angel contemplatively, his hands on his hips in a manner that drew back his coat and made his additional weight more obvious. "Used to be quite the terror back in the day. Haven't heard much of you lately, though."

"Haven't heard much of you ever," Angel replied; the best way to avoid questions about his inactivity in the vampire world in the last few years was to avoid drawing any attention to it.

"Nostroyev!" the vampire proudly replied. "Scourge of Siberia and Butcher of Alexander Palace."

"Doesn't ring a bell," Alice said nonchalantly, smiling slightly teasingly at the other vampire.

"I was Rasputin's lover!" Nostroyev said, his tone sounding far more petulant than Alice would have expected for a vampire with that kind of reputation; either he was just arrogant, or he was arrogant and hadn't actually done much to merit it.

"Uh," Spike said, rolling his eyes awkwardly as Angel glanced sceptically at him, "look, I broke these two out just shortly after I got free. Didn't know you were back there. Would've come for you as well. Suppose we had our hands full with the sailors, didn't we?"

Neither Angel or Alice needed to hear the unnerving laughter of the Prince of Lies to understand what Spike meant by that; the bodies scattered around them were more than enough to remind them of what the people before them had done.

"Is there anyone still alive in here?" Alice asked, looking inquiringly at Spike as she tried not to think about the Prince of Lies' laughter; it sounded like a bizarre combination of a bat's screech and a cat scratching over a chalkboard

"Nah, just finished off the last of them," Spike replied. "What about back there? Save us anything?"

"Couple of men left in the torpedo room," Angel replied; he wasn't about to give anyone specific details until he had the situation under control.

"Well," Spike said, smiling around at the other vampires, "what are we waiting for?"

"No," Angel said, stepping in front of Spike with one hand up as the younger vampire started to walk back towards the hatch.

"What?" Spike said, looking indignantly at his grandsire.

"We're not killing any more humans," Angel said firmly, before amending his statement to a more Angelus-like turn of phrase. "Well, not right now."

"Why the hell not?" Spike asked.

"Because," Angel said, his arms folded as he focused his attention on his former partner-in-slaughter, "in case you haven't noticed, Spike, we're trapped at the bottom of the ocean."

"Yeah," Spike said, nodding briefly in acknowledgement of the point."So?"

"We're... underwater?" the Prince of Lies said, looking suspiciously up at the ceiling.

"Pretty much, yeah," Alice confirmed with a nod. "I know that we don't exactly need to breath, but we're too far from land to just walk back, and you can take it from me that fish aren't exactly pleasant to taste- to say nothing of the annoyance of having to fight off sharks if we stir up too much blood while eating-, so unless you know how to pilot this thing, we are going to need their help to get anywhere."

"Oh, come on; how hard can it be?" Spike said, walking over to a nearby control panel, only to be stopped when Alice grabbed him by one wrist and gave it a tight but warning squeeze.

"_Very _hard," she said, staring firmly at the other vampire. "This is not like a boat where you can only steer it, Spike; unless you know how to control something that moves in _three _dimensions- to say nothing of having any idea what way land is from our current position-, we're going to need trained professionals to get back to land, and that means that we _don't _kill the crew, understand?"

"Check," Spike said, smiling at Alice in a manner that simultaneously disturbed her and inspired another flash of that blond-haired vampire she'd never been able to identify (Why _did_ she keep seeing him?).

"Tell you what," Nostroyev said, picking up a wooden-handled fire axe, "we'll leave one alive to work the boat, and eat the rest."

"Nope," Angel said, putting a firm hand on Nostroyev's chest to halt his advance.

"Uh, yeah," Spike said, looking sympathetically at Nostroyev, "probably should warn you; he likes to pretend he's the boss."

"You may have made a name for yourself muscling around weaker vampires," Nostroyev began, prompting a brief indignant interjection from Spike even as he continued speaking, "but I am Nostroyev. I will tear you open and play "Coachman, Spare Your Horses" on the lute of your entrails. Get out of my way."

"OK, first of all, I'm actually _stronger _than he is and I'm taking orders from him," Alice said, taking up position alongside Angel so that she could join him in staring at Nostroyev. "And secondly..."

Before Nostryoev could realise what she was doing, Alice's hand was now covered in blood holding a small whiteish-pink thing and there was a not-inconsiderable hole in Nostroyev's side, leaving him open-mouthed with horror, gasping as though he was in so much pain that he couldn't even scream.

"_This_," Alice said, holding the object in her hand out in front of him, "is your kidney; I know you probably don't need it, given that you're essentially dead and your body automatically processes the blood you drink anyway, but I trust I've made my point?"

Roaring in silent rage, Nostroyev lunged towards Alice, only for Alice to punch him in the face with the hand holding the kidney, her fist tearing through his head and leaving his body to collapse into ash, the cranial trauma he had sustained essentially decapitating him.

"He wouldn't listen," Alice said, shrugging as she looked apologetically at Angel; she might not particularly care about whether the other vampires lived or died, but Angel had made a point when he said that they needed .

"It's fine," Angel said, nodding in understanding at her before he turned back to the other two vampires. "We don't kill the humans 'til we reach land. Is that clear?"

"Heil Hitler," Spike said, holding his fingers up in a mocking gesture.

"Can't you even get the damn salute right?" Alice asked, rolling her eyes in frustration. "The current crew are _Americans_, Spike; just remember that, please?

She might not want to kill any more people than she had to- she might be stronger than Angel, but that didn't mean that she was more comfortable with violence than he was-, but that didn't mean that she had to like the people she was going to be stuck with...

* * *

><p>A short while later, the various remaining humans were back at their posts, continuing to work at their pre-assigned tasks of getting the submarine back up and running before the oxygen ran out. Spike and the Prince of Lies were being kept available in case their strength was required for any of the more challenging tasks- although Angel and Alice were both in firm agreement that Alice would be the one to go outside if there was any kind of external damage to the sub-, but otherwise things were progressing relatively smoothly.<p>

Alice might not entirely like the idea of them keeping two vampires alive, but she understood Angel's essential reasoning; in this situation, given their lack of knowledge about the sub, additional hands could make all the difference, and the potential to spread further disinformation among the vampire community about his current status was something that they couldn't overlook...

"May I speak freely, sir?" Lawson said, looking awkwardly at Angel as the two men carried the bodies of the dead crew away from their comrades, Alice 'shifting' her focus between Angel and the other two vampires sitting in the main control room so much that she barely registered Angel's confirming nod to Lawson. "I recognize there's a lot going on here that I don't understand... but those monsters butchered my crew... and apparently they're in the S.S.."

"Spike's not in the S.S.," Angel corrected; Spike had done enough wrong in the past that there was no point accusing him of things he hadn't done. "He just likes wearing the jacket."

"Yeah," Lawson said, shaking his head briefly as though trying to think of a better way to continue his sentence, "that doesn't help me understand why we're working with him or keeping him alive, for that matter."

"We have him under control-" Alice began.

"With all due respect, ma'am, that's not the point," Lawson said (Alice had no idea how she should feel about being a 'ma'am'; technically, she was probably in her mid-fifties if her age when she was turned was anything to go by, but that didn't mean she _felt _like someone who should be 'ma'amed'). "They killed my captain-"

"And we don't know what we're going to have to deal with while we're getting this ship back to the surface," Alice said, looking firmly at him, trying to sound more confident about this decision than she felt; Angel's point about them possibly needing the extra hands was potentially valid, but that didn't require her to like it. "We don't have much of a crew left, and they're going to have to make up the numbers; no matter what they are, you have your orders and we have ours, OK?"

"There's a difference between orders... and purpose, ma'am," Lawson said, looking grimly at her as he covered a body with a blanket. "I didn't sign on 'cause I needed directions. Hell, growin' up, I used to make fun of the military boys. Always figured they wouldn't know how to tie their shoes if someone didn't give 'em the go-ahead. Then I saw pictures of what the Krauts were doing. Evil's spreading, sir, ma'am... and it's not just over there. It was on my ship, it killed my crew, and we gotta stop it! And I've been scared out of my mind since I signed on for this duty, but I can keep it together, I can even handle dying, if I know it's for a greater purpose."

"We have a job to do," Angel said, looking solemnly at the younger man even as Alice's experience with her adopted sire helped her see that Lawson's words had still affected him; he might feign indifference, but the young man's resolve was somewhat encouraging. "That job is going to help us win the war. I don't need you to understand every detail, but just know we're fighting on the same side, and I need you to trust that Alice and I are going to get us all through this... safe and sound."

Looking between the two vampires for a moment, Lawson finally nodded in understanding.

"Yes, sir," he said, smiling slightly at them.

"We'll get you all home, Lawson," Alice said, reaching over to give his shoulder a light, comforting squeeze. "I promise."

Looking over at Angel, she gave him a brief nod as Lawson walked back to the control room, answering the question that Angel had just been about to answer; the situation would be difficult, but, so long as they maintained their current plan, they should manage to get everyone up to the surface and get out of the sub without any more deaths...


	9. Small but Significant Ripple

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: As with the last chapter, anything you don't see happened as it did originally, and I'll try and reference what took place in the missing scenes anyway; hope you like it

AN 2: In advance, if anyone wonders how Alice can predict what Spike or other vampires of Angel's breed are going to do when she couldn't see the actions of anything that she had never been in the books, that's because she's spent so much time with Angel; while she's never _been _one of his breed of vampire, the amount of time she's spent with Angel has given her enough of an insight into how they think to get around that 'rule'

Angels with Bloody Teeth

As she stood against the wall in the main command centre of the submarine, she felt almost guilty admitting to herself that she was actually starting to have a good time.

The situation they were faced with might still be grim at best- even if the crew were back at the controls, the submarine was still stuck at the bottom of the ocean in rather poor condition-, but there was a certain thrill in participating in this kind of life-saving mission as she watched the crew come together after the initial chaos to complete their mission, Lawson helping to calm the rest of the crew as they carried out their respective tasks, encouraging them to focus on the positives of their repairs rather than what they still couldn't do.

She doubted she'd stick around to get more missions from the government like this one after the sub was out of danger, of course- even if she liked helping people, she definitely _disliked _having to take orders from anyone who'd threatened to stake Angel and torch her to get them to do anything-, but it did open up some interesting possibilities...

"Come on," Spike said, his tone almost whining as he and Angel returned to the command centre, Angel flicking through a book as Spike looked wistfully at some of the control panels scattered around them, "when am I going to get a turn?"

"In about never," Angel replied, shooting a brief glare at Spike before turning his attention back to the book in his hands.

"Look, I'm playing nice-" Spike began.

"And if you don't want us to forget that, you'll do what we tell you and _not _try and push your luck," Alice said, looking firmly over at the other vampire before he could finish his sentence (She was just relieved that she'd started to pick up some impressions from other vampires of Angel's 'breed' after so long with Angel; after spending so much time with humans, it was always disconcerting for her to have to deal with people where she couldn't predict what they were going to do). "Now keep quiet, we're trying to work, OK?"

"Alice is right, Spike; you're not helping," Angel said, glaring firmly at the other vampire. "Just go and check that the torpedoes are all right before I stuff you in a tube and send you for a swim, clear?"

Rolling his eyes in frustration, Spike shot off a mocking salute at Angel before he turned around and walked out of the room, leaving Angel and Alice with the rest of the crew.

"We gonna have a situation, sir?" Lawson asked, walking over to address Angel in a low voice.

"He'll do what I tell him," Angel replied, as he placed the book on a desk to study it better.

"'Cause you know each other," Lawson said, a hesitant tone in his voice; evidently, he didn't like the implied decision to question a superior's orders. "From before this, right?"

"Our history is... complicated," Alice said, walking over to stand beside Angel as she looked contemplatively at Lawson. "Is... something wrong?"

"I just want to make sure this boat gets to where it's going," Lawson said, walking around the desk to stand next to Angel. "That and my crew are all that matters."

"How they holding up?" Angel asked, indicating the rest of the crew after a moment's uncertain silence (Not that Alice could blame him for the fact that he hadn't asked such a question earlier; even after helping her for the last two decades or so, Angel wasn't used to thinking about taking responsibility for large groups).

"They knew capturing a Jerry sub could be a one-way ticket, but they're good men," Lawson said, a firm tone in his voice with only a slight trace of hesitation that was only to be expected given the complexity of the current situation. "They'll keep it together, and they'll follow orders. Or they'll have me to answer to."

"Good," Angel said. "Everybody keeps their cool, we might just make it out of this."

That hope was quickly dashed by the sound of a scream from the next room, Alice only just restraining herself from moving at her top speed to investigate the source of the yells as Angel and Lawson hurried after her, quickly arriving in the next room to find the Prince of Lies attacking the German officer the vampires had noted earlier.

"What the hell are you doing?" Angel asked, looking directly at the ancient vampire.

"You think I don't know?" the Prince of Lies spat, waving a rolled-up sheet of paper in his hands before he threw it roughly onto the floor. "I am as ancient as the darkness itself!"

"OK, you're old, we get that, could you just calm down?" Alice asked, rolling her eyes in exasperation at the other vampire's behaviour.

"They dare conceive such violations upon my temple!" the Prince of Lies continued, walking angrily towards the German, an almost tearful anger in his voice as the human stared back at the vampire with terror obvious in his eyes. "The Prince of Lies is not a slab of meat to be set upon by insignificant maggots!"

"Put a sock in it," Angel said, reaching out to grab the older vampire by the shoulder, only for the Prince of Lies to roar and throw Angel against the wall. Pulling out his gun, Lawson fired desperately at the Prince of Lies, his bullets having no visible effect apart from damaging the other vampire's clothing, leaving Alice to roll her eyes and hurry over to grab the Prince of Lies by the head.

"You know," Alice said, glaring at the ancient vampire in her arms as she spoke, ignoring his desperate attempts to bat her away- he might be old, but at this angle her natural strength was more than enough to compensate for the greater experience he might have compared to her-, "I was trying to get through this whole mess _without _killing anybody- it's so tedious and uncivilised, when you get down to it-, but you just _had _to mess that up, didn't you?"

With that, she gave the head a sharp twist, and it came away in her hands, both the head and body collapsing into dust before the Prince of Lies could even scream. For a moment, the German started to talk, but Angel terminated that conversation by getting back to his feet and knocking the other man down with a quick punch before he turned to look at Lawson and the other men, the rest of the crew having gathered at the door after hearing the commotion.

"You all right?" Angel asked, as Lawson shakily got to his feet.

"Nothing a year of shore leave won't fix," Lawson replied, hauling himself back to his feet with the aid of the nearby sink.

"He... he _exploded_!" one of the men- a slightly overweight man, younger than Lawson; Alice thought she'd heard someone identify him as 'Hodge' earlier- said, looking at Alice in shock. "She twisted his _head _off and... and he just exploded!"

"Get back to your stations," Lawson said, looking firmly at the other men. "Now!"

As the rest of the crew walked away, Lawson put his gun back in its holster and turned to look at Alice. "Man's asking a good question."

"You really need an answer?" Angel asked.

"Might help if I heard it for sure," Lawson said.

"Vampire," Angel said.

"Yeah, I take it back; doesn't help," Lawson said, looking briefly at Alice before deciding that he didn't want to learn how she was capable of what she had just done, subsequently turning his attention to the table in front of them. "So what do you think set him off?"

"I'm guessing these had something to do with it," Spike said- when the other vampire had appeared in the room Alice didn't know; she'd been too busy being angry at the Prince of Lies to pay full attention to what was happening around her-, holding up the report that the Prince had dropped. "Anybody read Nazi?"

After nobody else had responded, Spike turned and threw the paper on the table in front of the German, who had by now gotten up off the floor and taken a seat behind the table. "Right; let's have it."

"We don't have time for this, Spike," Angel said.

"Better hurry it up, then," Spike said, his face transforming as he glared at the German, "before I get peckish."

The German responded with a rapid speech that Alice didn't understand a word of; she made a mental note to try and find out more about German as soon as she could (That was also something to be grateful for; given her perfect memory, it wouldn't take that long to pick up what to do).

"How's that again, mate?" Spike asked.

"He says you're an idiot," Lawson said (Alice had to give him credit; for someone who hadn't even known that the supernatural existed before now, he was handling Spike's presence rather well).

"You speak German?" Angel said, looking over at Lawson in surprise.

"Enough to get by," Lawson clarified.

"Well, gravy," Spike said, smiling over at Lawson. "I'll menace; you talk."

After Spike shot a brief snarl at the German, Lawson turned to address their prisoner, delivering a German speech that Alice didn't fully understand while Spike leaned over the man in full vampire face and issuing the occasional growl, to which the German responded with a single word.

"He says it's research," Lawson said.

"Research?" Alice said, looking sceptically at the German. "Research into what?"

Even if she had ideas about what the man before her was talking about, she'd appreciate confirmation before she did anything else...

Looking at the German, Lawson spoke again, followed by a longer response from the German with one word that Alice definitely recognised.

"What about vampires?" Spike asked.

"I don't know, it's technical," Lawson said, picking up the report to leaf through it briefly. "Something about stimulation and... control. They've been experimenting on them... and cutting into their brains."

"Oh God..." Alice said, swallowing as she took in what Lawson had just said, exchanging glances with Angel.

They'd had an idea of what was happening on this sub, but the idea that they were actually experimenting on sentient beings...

Not even the worst vampires deserved to be treated like that, as far as Alice was concerned; she didn't like to kill, but at least that ended it.

"That what got the Prince's coronet in a twist, isn't it?" Spike said, looking at the German with a smug tone as the answer to the obvious question was provided at last. "Found out you were gonna pop our tops and melon-ball us."

"They're trying to create an army," Lawson said, looking over at Spike as he studied the report, "out of things like you."

"That explains why they nicked us," Spike noted, looking over at Angel. "Cream of the crop. Wanna build an army of vampire slaves, you start at the top- with the generals."

"It's not enough what you're already doing in the world, is it?" Lawson said, glaring scathingly at the German as he tossed the papers back onto the table. "Only you and your fuehrer could come up with something this sick."

In response to Lawson's statement, the German laughed before he spoke again, Alice once again unable to understand what he was saying even as the expression on his face as he looked at Angel made it clear that it wasn't good news before Angel spat a response.

"Am I the only one don't speak Kraut?" Spike asked.

"I don't; haven't had a reason to learn yet," Alice put in, smiling over at him in an uncertain moment of attempted bonding with the other vampire.

"You knew about this?" Lawson asked, looking over indignantly at Angel.

"He did?" Spike asked.

"It was part of the mission-" Angel began.

"And _not _one that we agreed on," Alice interjected, glaring around the room in case Angel's usual reticence got them in trouble. "We were only here to get the crew to safety; everything after that would be dealt with depending on what we found."

"Hold on..." Spike said, looking at Angel in confusion before nodding in understanding. "Oh, I get it; you're playing both sides against each other."

"Spike-" Angel said, staring in frustration at his grandchilde.

"No, I respect that," Spike said, holding up his hands in a dismissive gesture. "But if the Yanks are after this stuff too, I'm eatin'-"

Spike's words were cut off as Alice grabbed him by the throat and rammed him against the wall with such force that the metal actually dented slightly around him, Spike wincing in pain as Alice glared at him.

"You're not eating _anybody_, and we're not letting either side get their hands on vampires," she said, staring firmly at the other vampire. "We need everyone left on this crew alive to get out of this mess; once we're at the surface, we're all out of here, OK?"

"...OK..." Spike said, his voice weak from the pressure that Alice was exerting against his throat.

"Good," Alice said, stepping back from the wall and releasing her grip on Spike's throat with a casual smile as though nothing untoward had just happened, before she walked over to pick up the files that had inspired the Prince of Lies' earlier rage, grabbed a cigarette lighter from Spike's pocket, and nonchalantly flicked the lighter on to watch as the papers burned.

"God save the-!" Spike began with a smile.

"They're Americans, Spike; that's pointless," Alice said, shaking her head in exasperation as she tossed the papers to the floor where they smouldered into ashes, leaving the German to stare in anger at the burning files before a muffled explosion drew their attention away from the fire.

"What was that?" Lawson asked.

"Depth charges?" Alice suggested, looking over at Angel.

"Best guess," Angel said, hurrying through the sub back into the control centre, followed by the others.

"Talk to me, Hodge," Lawson said, looking urgently at the lieutenant who'd wondered what the Prince of Lies was earlier.

"Contact manoeuvring, sir," Hodge said, listening to the radar results over his earphones. "Multiple cavitations."

"How many?" Lawson asked urgently. "Hodge!"

"I'm picking up at least three... no, four destroyers," Hodge said, listening through the headphones for another moment before looking back at Lawson.

"Four?" another lieutenant said, clearly horrified at this latest news. "We couldn't take on one in this condition!"

"Splashes!" Hodge yelled, looking sharply back at Lawson.

"Sixty metres! Fast dive!" Lawson yelled over at one of the other lieutenants, turning to address the others as they acted. "Spinello, bow plane! Hold steady, six-degree down bubble!"

"What can we do?" Angel asked.

"Hang on," Lawson said, just as the submarine started to dive. For a few moments, there was only silence, leaving the crew the chance to relax for a moment until another explosion rocked the sub, knocking them all off-balance and disrupting the power, leaving sparks flying from the circuits as the overhead lights suddenly all but vanished, leaving only a few red lights blaring around them.

"Report!" Lawson yelled.

"Propulsion motor's down!" another lieutenant said, looking desperately back at Lawson. "We're dead in the water!"

"Go!" Angel yelled, looking firmly at Lawson. "Get it back up!"

"I don't- I'm not sure if I can," Lawson said, his previous authority lost in the face of this unexpected turn of events.

"Get sure, fast," Angel said, his tone allowing for no argument; Lawson simply muttered an acknowledgement before he turned and hurried out of the control centre. For a moment, Alice stood and watched as the remaining military officers struggled to maintain control- she wasn't entire sure what controls did what and didn't want to ask too many questions that might distract the experienced people here at a crucial moment-, but then a sudden vision drove all thoughts of waiting here out of her head, prompting her to turn and hurry as comparatively slowly as possible- fast enough to get where she wanted to go but not fast enough to damage anything around her-, finally reaching the German just as he was starting to walk towards the engine part of the ship.

"Sorry, _komrade_," Alice spat, giving the German just enough time to turn to look at her before she quickly punched him in the face, "but that's _not _happening."

She didn't know what had motivated him to decide to attack Lawson- he might have been angry at his captivity and lashing out at the nearest solo lieutenant, he might have known that Lawson was the engineer of the crew and wanted to ensure that this sub wouldn't make it into the hands of the Americans, or he could have just been somewhat mad-, but that didn't matter now; all that mattered (so long as nothing seriously disrupted the path that she now foresaw in her visions) was that the submarine would be repaired, Lawson and the rest of the human crew would survive, and they'd reach the surface with more than enough night left for her, Angel and Spike to swim to shore and find shelter before the sun came up the next morning...

It might not have been the most conventional war service, but considering that she was a vampire who could see the future travelling with another kind of vampire, her life had _never _been normal.

All in all, she felt safe in saying that their contribution to the war effort had worked out as well as could be expected; they'd taken out the vampires, destroyed the potentially dangerous research, and saved the crew with a minimum of death after they'd arrived on the scene.

Give them a few years to stay under the radar and let government interest in them die down, and it might be worth looking into doing that kind of thing on a more regular basis...

* * *

><p>AN 3: Simple, I know, but I felt that there was no way Alice wouldn't foresee Lawson getting stabbed and manage to prevent it, resulting in the 'minor AU' to Angel's pre-show history that I mentioned earlier.<p>

Coming up next chapter, we jump forward to the 1950s, and I'm sure you'll all know what crucial events in Angel and Alice's lives took place in that decade...


	10. The Parting of the Ways

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: Here we are; the penultimate chapter of this crossover, looking at Angel and Alice's actions at the time of 'Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?', which will see the moment when we return to canon...

AN 2: According to the 'Twilight' wiki, Alice actually met Jasper a couple of years before 1952, but since the exact date has absolutely no impact whatsoever on my planned plot or what happened in the original series (It's like my view on Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday Party date or James and Lily's graves in _Harry Potter_; it's a useful bit of information, but you can ignore it if you want without it having a serious impact on anything else that takes place in the plot), I say that we just ignore that detail and focus on what happens here; hope you like it

Angels with Bloody Teeth

As he sat in his hotel room, Angel wondered how he should feel about the increased distance between him and Alice in the last few months.

It wasn't that they were drifting apart or on the verge of 'breaking up'- if he could use that term in a situation where they weren't even actually 'dating' or anything like that in the first place; by this point they were generally comfortable referring to the other as their sibling-, but after Alice had managed to stay clean and avoid drinking human blood even in the most dangerous and tense of situations for nearly two decades, they had both recognised the need for her to branch out and explore what she was capable of on her own rather than exclusively relying on Angel for help all the time.

Actually, Angel was almost surprised to find how much more concerned he was about the possibility of attracting too much attention to himself than he was about Alice drawing attention to herself. It might reflect an over-reliance on Alice, but without her visions he was reluctant to take any significant action, even if it was intended to help anyone around him, that might make him too interesting to the wrong people, particularly given the current paranoia caused by Senator McCarthy's excessively anti-Russian attitude (Why nobody had suggested that the guy get therapy Angel didn't know; there were times when he wondered if even _humans_ understood how to be human in the modern world).

As he stepped out of the elevator after paying the week's rent downstairs, he briefly noted two men walking out of a room a short distance down the corridor from his own, their body language being particularly suggestive to even an amateur, but their decision to step apart and shake hands when they saw him suggested that they wanted to keep whatever they were doing quiet. As one of them walked down the hall, Angel exchanged glances with the other man in a brief acknowledgement of each other's need for privacy before they went into their respective rooms, Angel tossing his keys and newspaper onto the table before setting a bag of blood down beside them.

With nothing else to immediately occupy his time, Angel took the opportunity to head out and get a new load of ice from down the hall, briefly noting and ignoring someone talking to someone else around a corner a short way down the corridor, and another man standing in front of a door back the way he came, before he walked back into his room; neither of those men were his problem

It was only after he'd shut the door and put the bottle of blood into a bucket that he sensed someone else in the room with him; his reflexes _really _weren't as sharp as they could be if he was missing things like that rather than picking them up immediately.

Putting the lid on the bucket- he didn't want to attract cries of 'monster' when he might be able to just intimidate whoever was here into leaving-, he turned around to see a young woman with dark hair in a floral-print dress walking out of the bathroom.

"I'll be finished here in just two shakes, sir," the woman said, as she walked over to straighten the sheets of the bed.

"You're not the maid," Angel said.

"I-I don't know what you mean," the woman said, stammering slightly as she made a poor show of trying to adjust the bedsheets.

"You're not a maid in this hotel," Angel said, walking over to stare at her as she stopped fiddling with the sheets. "There is no cleaning trolley outside the door, those sheets are dirty, and you're the wrong colour."

"I'm sorry," the woman said, turning to look at him after a moment's uncertain silence. "The door was open, and I was just... I-I didn't mean-"

"I've got nothing here to steal," Angel informed her, targeting the most likely explanation for her presence; he and lice kept most of their money in various accounts and investments they'd set up over the last few years, and any money that was in the room was kept in his pockets.

"No, I wasn't trying to steal from you," the woman said, looking at him with renewed desperation. "Honest, I can explain-"

"Not interested," Angel said; he didn't have time to provide shelter for someone who couldn't afford a room. "Just go."

"Uh... I can't," the woman said.

"I'll help you," Angel said, grabbing her arm and dragging her towards the door.

"Uh... m-my boyfriend, he's kind of the jealous type..." the woman began.

"Maybe you shouldn't go wandering into other men's rooms," Angel said, continuing to lead her firmly towards the door.

"Wait, please!" the woman yelled, desperation in her voice as she stood in front of him, between him and the door to the room. "He can't find me!"

A scratching noise at the door prompted Angel to look at it, just in time to see the lock slowly turning; evidently, whoever they were dealing with here didn't have permission from the hotel staff if they were taking that long to turn a lock. Pushing the woman up against the wall so that she couldn't be seen by whoever was at the other side of the door, Angel opened the door before the lock was opened on the other side, revealing the man who had been standing in front of another door crouched in front of his room, a lock-pick in his hand and dressed in a brown jacket and wide-brimmed hat that gave him the impression that he was trying far too hard to look professional.

"Where is she?" the man said as he got to his feet. "Look pal, this really isn't something you want to get involved in."

"That's true," Angel said, his mind made up by the man's words; even if he didn't want to get involved, he wasn't going to do anything to help someone like this. "Which is why you're gonna turn around and go away."

"Sorry, I can't do that, partner," the man said bluntly. "Because I know you're hiding her in there."

"I'm not hiding anybody," Angel replied.

"No?" the man said, in a tone that made it clear that he knew that Angel was lying. "Then why don't you send her on out here? That way I don't have to come in there and get her."

"You're not coming in here," Angel said firmly; the man might not be a vampire, but the firm rejection of any kind of invitation would at least given him a good reason for anything he might attempt from now on to ensure that he was left alone.

"You won't mind if I just come in and take a look around, then," the man said, taking off his hat and pulling his jacket slightly aside to reveal a gun in a holster.

Looking briefly at the gun, Angel made his decision- if the guy was serious enough to threaten physical violence, it was rapidly approaching a point where he'd have to take action to maintain his privacy-, releasing his grip on the door long enough for the man to start walking in before Angel slammed the door on his face, sending him staggering back as he clutched at his nose.

"Gee, I guess I do mind," Angel said, taking a brief satisfaction in the abrupt manner in which he'd taken the wind out of the other man's sails before the man Angel assumed was a private investigator began to reach for his gun. Acting quickly, Angel twisted his arm and forced him down the hall, shoving the would-be attacker into the elevator's opening doors before he could do anything other than yelp about the discomfort Angel was causing him (At least the mood of the present day meant that nobody would be that interested in finding out what all the commotion was about).

"He's going down," Angel said briefly to the bellhop inside the elevator, before he turned around and headed back to his room, the sound of the doors closing behind him the only sign that the bellhop had registered his 'order'.

"Gosh," the woman said as she stood outside Angel's room, smiling at him in relief. "I mean, that was... Gosh. Listen, I know we got off on the wrong foot; my name is Judy-"

Angel just closed the door behind himself, leaving Judy standing in the corridor; even if he sympathised with her apparent plight, he had too many vampire-related things around his room for him to feel comfortable letting anyone that wasn't Alice stay in there with him until he'd had a chance to move a few things out of obvious sight, and maybe not even then.

If Judy was still around later, he might see what he could do to help her; right now, dealing with her immediate attacker was all the attention that he could afford to draw to himself in an increasingly paranoid society...

* * *

><p>As she walked into the diner, Alice wished that she had a clearer idea why she was doing this.<p>

It wasn't that she doubted her visions or anything like that- they'd come through for her when she needed them in the past well enough, beginning with the moment when they allowed her to learn her name and going along from there to occasions when she'd managed to save her and Angel's lives-, but that didn't mean that she always understood them; even now, she didn't entirely know why she'd done some of the things she'd done on the prompting of her power.

Right now, however, all she had to go on was an instinct to find a diner in this part of the country and wait for someone there; she didn't know his name, but she knew that it was the haunted-looking vampire she'd seen in her visions ever since her first and only kiss with Angel.

The mystery of resolving his identity would have convinced her to keep up her search without any other kind of incentive, but it was everything she _felt _when she saw him that inspired her to keep on searching.

Right now, however, it was time to move on; this wasn't the diner that she was looking for, but her vision-sense- or whatever instinct it was that helped her work out what to do to fulfil or avert her visions- told her that she was getting _close _to her destination...

* * *

><p>He might have gone to the effort of finding a magic shop that didn't seem to be selling the usual load of rubbish, but even as he walked into the store, Angel still didn't really know why he was doing this.<p>

He wasn't exactly interested in causing pain any more, but when the last time he'd actually helped any humans had only happened in the first place because he was being blackmailed, he didn't exactly have a good track record at helping people avoid pain either, to say nothing of the people that Alice had killed in the months before they'd managed to 'wean' her off human blood...

But, in the end, when Judy looked at him like that, terrified and alone, asking for help to escape people who'd prosecute her for nothing more than the fact that her mother hadn't been white, he couldn't bring himself to reject the appeal for help; he might not have gone out of his way to be in a position where anyone would want his help, but he wasn't going to turn her away just because it wasn't 'convenient'.

He'd been able to ignore the gunshot from the room next to his the previous night because his enhanced senses had been enough to confirm that there wasn't anyone else in the room and he'd seen no point in taking too much interest in a suicide, but with Judy desperate for some kind of safety after losing her job for such a stupid reason... her sense of isolation from everyone reminding him of how alone he might have been without Alice to help him through these last few decades... there had to be _something_ he could do to help her.

The sight of someone sitting behind the counter listening to the radio didn't encourage Angel's faith in the shop, but it was the first potentially authentic magic shop he'd found with enough of a reputation to suggest that the owner was more than just some guy selling interesting crystals and random herbs to encourage the superstitious; he'd just have to hope that the man's demeanour didn't reflect his attitude towards his work.

"They keep calling her a zany redhead," the man said, staring at the radio on the desk in front of him as the sound of laughter emerged from the device. "Could be a brunette for all _I_ can tell. I guess I'll just have to take their word for it."

"You Denver?" Angel asked, the man looking up as the vampire approached the desk.

"No other cat but me," the man said, sitting back slightly in his chair. "What can I do you for?"

"I need information on demons," Angel replied.

"Do you now, daddy?" Denver said, getting up from his chair and walking around the counter.

"Everything you got on possessing entities, demonic suggestions, exorcisms, cleansing rituals..." Angel confirmed; the man's attitude didn't encourage the idea that he knew what was out there, but he might just be bluffing to reinforce the idea that he was nothing but a casual peddler until he knew what Angel knew about magic.

"Try this one," Denver replied, picking up a book and tossing it to Angel, who only registered that it was a Bible when he caught the text in his hands and they started to burn. Instinctively vamping out as he dropped the book, Angel looked up to see Denver pulling a cross and a wooden stake from one of the bookshelves, prompting Angel to duck into position behind one of the shelves to the side.

"That's right," Denver said, running past the shelf to yell out of the open door, evidently assuming that Angel had already left when he wasn't immediately visible. "Run coward of the night! And tell your buddies I'm thinking very seriously about putting down my bedroll right here, so you bastards can't just walk in here uninvited! You got any idea who you're dealing with?"

Before Denver's yells could attract more attention, Angel walked up behind the man and grabbed him in a neck lock, hauling him back into the store.

"I know you've got a reputation; that's why I'm here," Angel said, allowing himself to vamp out so that he could make a more assertive impression on the other man. "Now, it's been a long time since I've opened a vein, but I'll do it if you pull any more of this Van Helsing junior crap with me. Are we clear? I want the books in the back."

With that, he released his grip on the man and stepped back, leaving Denver to hurry towards the rear storeroom while Angel watched him.

It might have been a more violent way to make his point, but it should be enough to convince this guy to step up and give him what he wanted without too much hassle; with any luck, he'd have this demon exorcised before the night was over.

* * *

><p>Whenever she looked back at this event in the aftermath, Alice would never know what it was about this specific diner that allowed her to realise that she'd find what she was looking for in this place rather than anywhere else. She'd been going through diners so quickly that it was only her unchanging visions that allowed to confirm that she wasn't at the right one yet- these diners were so generic on the inside her visions couldn't give her a great deal of specifically-identifiably features that would allow her to identify one diner over every other potential diner...<p>

Nevertheless, she was certain that this place was what she had been looking ever since she'd started her search. The architectural structure might be the same as what she'd seen in so many other diners since she'd first started travelling through them to find the subject of her vision, but there were just little clues she'd seen- scuff marks in a particular pattern on the floor, specific stains on the ceiling, a tear on the seats in a particular location- that led her mind to tell her that _this _was where she should be.

Her visions had led her here, and they hadn't been wrong so far when they wanted her to do something; she just wished that she could figure out precisely _what _they were doing bringing her here...

Then the door opened, and a key scent hit her nostrils; the scent of a vampire of her breed, travelling alone, along with the faint scent of human blood, so faint that the vampire was clearly pushing his limit between 'feeding times'. Turning around, Alice smiled at the sight of the man who'd just walked into the diner; a tall, thin man with an impression of wiry strength, thick scars around his neck under his collar and a tense preparation about his stance as though he was ready to spring into action even when he wasn't.

Looking at the face that she had seen so often in her visions, taking in his surroundings, with long blond hair and an expression that reminded her of Angel when he was faced with sunlight, in front of her in real life for the first time, Alice smiled in satisfaction.

At last, one of the first mysteries of her vampire life was solved (She counted the mystery of what she'd been like in her human life as something completely separate); she had found the vampire she had been having visions of since her only kiss with Angel.

"I've been waiting a long time for you," she said, staring pointedly at the vampire as he turned to look at her, his discomfort replaced with a surprised smile of pleasure, as though he wasn't sure why he was feeling this way or what she meant by that last statement, but accepted her comment nevertheless.

"Sorry, ma'am," the vampire replied after a moment of uncertain silence as he stared at her, a Southern tilt to his voice that Alice found surprisingly endearing.

Offering him her hand, Alice smiled as he took it without prompting, despite the obvious confusion on his face; clearly, whatever 'this' was between them, he felt it to at least some degree.

What this was and why she felt it, Alice didn't know yet, but she was going to make it her priority to find out before she had to go anywhere else.

She had found the man she'd been having visions about since that strange day she'd first kissed Angel; she was sure that Angel could wait for her for a few days on his own.

Besides... now that she thought about it, there _was _another vision after the ones she'd had of this man that she was only just starting to see clearly... a vision of three men and two women, with the same eye-colour as her,

* * *

><p>Forcing his way back to consciousness as he hung at the end of the rope- he might not actually need to breath, but he still required enough oxygen that the pressure on his neck would be enough to knock him out-, Angel barely registered the silence of the lobby around him; apparently, the crowd that had just lynched him had decided to abandon it after they'd actually done it.<p>

God... what kind of bastards _killed _a man and left his body hanging like this? What, did they think that he'd just vanish now that they'd left his body alone after the deed was done and they wouldn't have to worry about concealing their guilt themselves?

As he heard the last footsteps running away- he vaguely registered the sound of someone pleading about what had just happened, but this wasn't the time to think about crap like that; he was too busy focusing on the pain in his neck to pay attention to someone having last-minute thoughts after _killing _someone-, he reached up, grabbed the rope holding his neck, and hauled himself upwards, loosening the noose just enough so that he could get his neck out of the rope, leaving him free to drop to the ground.

As he got back to his feet, a strange rippling sound and a series of brief flashes from the steps behind him prompted him to turn around, just in time to witness the appearance of a tall grey-faced demon in a long hooded cloak, tentacles writing underneath the cloak in a manner that made it hard to tell if the thing was using them as legs or was just floating in the air.

"Well, I don't know about you," the creature that could only be the Thesulac said, laughing as it looked at Angel with a surprisingly distinctive Texan-like accent, "but I'm stuffed! God, I love people; don't you? They feed me their worst and I kind of serve it right back to them, and the fear and prejudice turns to certainty and hate, and I take another bite and mmm-mmm-mmm! What a beautiful, beautiful dance!"

Stuck for anything he actually wanted to say to the creature, Angel simply stared at the Thesulac as it moved down the landing towards Angel, a mocking expression of sympathy on its face.

"Oh, you got your feelings hurt, didn't you?" the creature said, chuckling as it stared at him. "See now what happens when you stick your neck out for them? They throw a rope around it!"

Glaring at the creature, Angel turned to walk towards the door; right now, he just wanted to get away from this place...

"And you thought you'd made a friend," the Thesulac said as he walked. "News flash; you _had_!"

Angel stopped at that comment, momentarily lost in his thoughts at that last revelation.

A part of him had always felt that his long association with Alice had mainly lasted this long because they were both outcasts from human and vampire society; the idea that someone human could actually consider him a _friend_...

"That's what made her the _yummiest_ morsel of all," the Thesulac said, laughing as it continued to speak. "You reached her, buddy! Restored her faith in people. Without you she would have been just another appetizer. But you plumped her up good! Now, she's a meal that's gonna last me a lifetime!"

Angel was briefly lost in thought at that comment; the idea that Judy had actually _cared _about him, rather than just seeing him as a means to an end...

It wasn't enough.

It was momentarily comforting, but she'd still gone and stabbed him in the back anyway...

"Hey, you know what?" the Thesulac said, floating over to whisper over Angel's shoulder

"There is an entire hotel here just full of tortured souls that could really use your help... What do you say?"

It would be relatively easy to take action against this thing; Angel knew that much.

The ritual to banish the Thesulac might have been complicated to perform, but he had found the appropriate books from Denver's shop, he had the necessary tools to perform the ritual, and he was definitely strong enough to do the job if things came down to a physical confrontation...

But where was the point?

He and Alice fought their urges every day of their lives, and these people couldn't be bothered to resist outside stimuli; where was the point in trying to rescue them?

"Take them all," he said, heading grimly for the door, ignoring the demon's laughter from behind him as he walked.

As he walked out of the hotel, Angel momentarily thought of Alice- he had nothing in his room that he would be that concerned about losing-, but he banished that thought from his mind.

Alice wouldn't understand why he was doing this, and he wasn't going to bother explaining; the way he felt right now, he just wasn't in the mood to justify his decisions to anyone, even the woman who'd become his 'little sister'.

In the end... he just couldn't do this right now. He'd tried to make a difference, and everyone involved had let him down out of their own petty prejudices against the strange guy with the anomalous background; he might not be a killer any more, but after something like that, he wasn't going to bother trying to help people who panicked at the first sign of the unknown and tried to string him up just because he didn't fit their expectations of what was 'normal'.

Alice would be better off without him now; at least it might help her retain some kind of hope for the future...

* * *

><p>When Alice came back to the Hyperion a few days later, with the intention of introducing Angel to her new lover- who had quickly introduced himself to her as Jasper Whitlock, a former soldier during the American Civil War who had been turned by a vampire to assist her in training newborns-, she was shocked to find that he had vanished, and even more horrified when her visions revealed what had happened to Angel before his disappearance when none of the other guests were willing to tell her the truth (There was a frustrating blank area that she couldn't see through, but that didn't seem to have had much impact on <em>why <em>whatever had taken place had happened). She spent a few months searching for Angel at first, but with the scent trail having gone cold and Angel apparently not making any long-term decisions about what he was going to do next, Alice had no way of finding him, and had eventually been forced to abandon the search and focus on her new life with Jasper.

Even after she and Jasper had found a new 'family' in the form of the Cullens- Doctor Carlisle Cullen, his wife Esme Cullen, and their adopted children Edward Cullen, Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie Hale-, during a trip through Washington investigating rumours of more vampires of their breed, even as she found herself settling into a new role as the youngest sister of the other Cullen siblings...

The Cullens might be pleasant enough company- Emmett providing a humour that she'd never experienced in her vampiric memory, Edward providing an intriguing insight into humanity with his ability to read minds, Rosalie the first female peer Alice had ever had, and Carlisle and Esme providing the parental security that even Angel couldn't provide her with-, but, no matter what 'void' they illed in her life, a part of Alice would always be looking for her first brother and mentor.

Jasper knew some of her history with Angel- she had told him about the older vampire that had helped her resist the lure of blood in the early days of her life as a vampire-, and Edward had picked up the occasional stray thought about her past, but in general she kept her thoughts of Angel under control, only thinking of him when Edward was out of range, keeping her unofficial brother's existence secret and giving him the privacy and freedom he had evidently sought when he left her, hoping that some day they'd find each other again.

As much as she missed him, somehow, in a way that went beyond the knowledge she received from her visions, Alice had a feeling that whatever had happened to Angel would eventually guide him to what he was meant to do with his life...

All she could do was hope that the day would come when they would meet each other again, and she could thank him for all that he had done for her.

* * *

><p>AN 3: Well, that's that; just the epilogue left, which sees Angel and Alice reuniting in the present day, at Angel's moment of greatest need...<p> 


	11. Reunions and Finales

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: This chapter begins shortly after the last scene of 'Not Fade Away', and for the 'Twilight' cast takes place a couple of years before the events of the first book (In other words, Bella and Rennesme aren't part of the family yet, so don't look for them); it's a complicated resolution, but I hope you like this conclusion

Angels with Bloody Teeth

As he ducked under the latest punch from what seemed to be a never-ending stream of demons, Angel had to wonder what would run out first; him, Spike, Gunn and Illyria's own personal strength, or the sheer amount of demons that the Senior Partners were currently throwing at him.

He'd like to think that the four of them could put up a good fight even with Illyria depowered, but with Gunn injured and no way to get him to safety right now, it was only a matter of time until they were one fighter down, and after that they were facing an unknown onslaught with nothing going for them than the fact that even the Senior Partners could only throw so much at them before they attracted too much attention from the other side and were forced to shut down.

God, how the _Hell _had it come to this? He'd known that attacking the Circle would bring the Partners' wrath down on his head, but he'd assumed that they'd focus on trying to stop him and leave everyone else alone; surely what he'd done would have had to have deprived them of _some _of their usual resources...

In the end, the how of this army's origins didn't matter; all that mattered was that they keep its attention focused on them so that they couldn't hurt anyone else.

Still... even if they fell this night... unable to call anyone else for help- he'd left Buffy a message, but he had little hope that she'd find it in time to save him; unable to leave too many clues to what he was planning, all that he'd been able to do was warn her that there was a situation in Los Angeles that might need to be contained by the Slayer army-, having done little more than essentially bloody the Senior Partners' noses, at least they would have done _something _that the Partners weren't expecting...

Glancing around, Angel's eyes widened in horror at the sight of a figure bending over Gunn's still form- the faint sound of a human heartbeat was only just audible to Angel's ears, and that was mainly because Gunn was the _only _human in this alley-, the lack of a heartbeat and the way the body 'reflected' the sound around it making it all too clear what that figure was.

Even if they were going to die this night, they were going to _die _this night; he wasn't going to let Gunn come back as any variation of the thing he'd hunted all his life, particularly not when there would be nobody around to help him control his thirst while he was still the person he'd been before...

"NO-!" Angel began, charging towards his friend's attacker, only to be suddenly halted when a smaller figure grabbed him by the arm and spun him around to face her.

"_Easy_, Angel!" a familiar voice said, a slight laugh to the speaker's tone even as she looked seriously at him. "Carlisle won't hurt him; he's here to help-"

"_Alice_?" Angel said, his eyes widening incredulously even as a broad grin spread across the lower part of his face as he took in the sight of his long-lost 'little sister' standing before him, dressed in a miniskirt and a tight maroon top but otherwise unchanged from when he'd last seen her.

"The one and only," Alice replied, grinning back at him before she spun around to kick an approaching Fyarl demon back, the sheer force of the blow breaking one of the Fyarl's horns and twisting its neck in a manner that no neck was meant to go. "And I brought a few friends."

Looking around, Angel's eyes widened as he realised what Alice was talking about; aside from the figure standing over Gunn, there were five other Cold Ones in the alley around them, each one of them striking out at the demons attacking them with a cold precision that made it clear that they were here to fight the demons rather than go after Angel and his allies. Angel could just make out two more women and three more men aside from Alice and the one she'd introduced as Carlisle, but that was mostly a guess based on hair length and what he could make out of their bodies in this darkened alley; right now, the only thing that mattered to him was that they were on his side rather than the Senior Partners' side.

"Don't worry, they won't go after Spike or the blue woman... although I _am _confused about who or what she actually is, by the way," Alice said, looking curiously at Angel.

"How did-?" Angel began, only to find himself with other things to think about when two demons charged at him and Alice from either side, forcing him to halt the current conversation and spin around to fight the Miquot demon facing him with blades extended while Alice struggled with a demon that had a face that vaguely resembled a short-trunked elephant that made up for the trunk in the tusk department.

"I saw what you were planning in a vision, and, given the scale of the numbers against you- well, based on my impression of your despair, anyway; I still can't see demons in my visions but I could get a good sense of numbers from the amount of times I saw you trying to fight something-, I thought that it would be best if I made sure that someone else was available to help you out when push came to shove," Alice clarified, pausing to break off one of her opponent's sharpened tusks and ram it through the creature's eye, before breaking off another tusk to use as an improvised sword as she sliced her way through a new wave of attackers.

"You've been keeping an eye on me?" Angel asked, not sure how he actually felt about that particular discovery even as he sliced through the next demon in front of him.

"Only intermittently; I've seen you a couple of times since... that day... but only when it was something particularly big, and never at a point when I'd be able to make a difference," Alice said, looking apologetically back at him even as the slight glare on her face confirmed that she still wasn't entirely happy about him leaving her that abruptly. "I've never brought it up to the rest in the past- either you were going to handle it yourself or there wasn't anything I could do about it-, but when I saw you going up against all these things a couple of days ago I thought that it was time to step in."

"Appreciate the thought, but I don't suppose you have any _other _ideas to get us through this mess?" Angel asked, ducking under another blow from his latest adversary- this one resembling a giant lobster with one claw larger than the other- before he was able to ram the sword through a weak point in the creature's exo-skeleton.

"I hoped that just being here would..." Alice began, before her voice trailed off as she looked upwards, her eyes momentarily blank in the manner that Angel recognised as her having a vision- it might have been almost six decades since he'd last seen Alice, but he'd spent the better part of the previous three decades with her- before she looked over at him with a smile. "Get Illyria; I saw our plan!"

As Alice turned to run towards the nearest Cold One, Angel leapt over an attacking Polgara demon, breaking its long claw as he kicked down at the claw to add to his rate of ascent before he landed behind the monster, ramming a fist into its back with sufficient force to send the creature staggering.

"ILLYRIA!" he called out, smiling in relief as he saw Fred's blue-haired form slicing her way through the nearest wave of demons.

"What?" Illyria asked, turning away from the last demon she'd decapitated with a stolen blade to look at the vampire.

"We've got back-up," Angel explained, manoeuvring into a position where he and Illyria were fighting back-to-back as they continued to struggle against the seemingly continuous wave of demons still charging against them. "An old friend has mentioned that they have a plan, but they'll need your help to pull it off."

"What is she?" Illyria asked, sounding like she was briefly straining against something else before Angel heard something crash into something else.

"She's on her way; in the meantime, we're available," an unknown voice replied, the tone a deep but amused one. Glancing around, Angel wasn't entirely surprised to see the physically largest Cold One standing there, his body reflecting a build that would have been exceptional even on a human, particularly since his physical age suggested that he had acquired it through a working life as he wasn't old enough to have acquired access to the gym resources that would have been needed if he wanted to build up his strength through more gradual efforts.

"Hi," the man said, smiling over at Angel and Illyria as he almost effortlessly drove his fists through the heads of a couple of demons that tried to charge at him from both sides. "I'm Emmett Cullen, Alice's brother; you're Angel, right?"

"Yeah," Angel said, nodding at the other man with a slight smile; being around a Cold One might be making Angelus uncomfortable, but his knowledge of Alice and his familiar golden eye-colour at least confirmed for Angel that this guy was a friend to Alice rather than a potential foe.

"Nice to meet you, even if we only heard about you a few hours ago," Emmett said, nodding briefly at the other vampire, apparently about to say more before Alice and five other figures suddenly appeared around them. Now that they were relatively still and significantly closer, Angel was able to confirm that Alice's new family included four male Cold Ones and three females- Alice being included in the count of females-, with the oldest-looking male dressed in a white coat with a sense of compassion about him that gave him the appearance of a healer, a brown-haired woman with a maternal manner about her, a thin vampire with long fair hair who seemed to be constantly glancing at his surroundings and drawing back his teeth as though preparing to snarl at something even as Alice moved closer to him, an incredibly beautiful blonde woman who was moving to stand next to Emmett, and a vampire with bronze-coloured hair and a moody expression that somehow left Angel with the unnerving feeling of looking at himself in the mirror when he was physically a few years younger.

"Ah, good, we're all here!" Alice said, grinning around at the other vampires even as their temporary gathering found themselves quickly facing outwards to fight the immediate threats still facing them. "Everyone, this is Angel, and the blue woman is Illyria; if we can just place our hands on her, she _should _be able to do something about this mess-"

"Put our _hands _on her?" the blonde Cold One said, looking over at Alice with an expression of confused disdain. "Alice, this isn't time for a meet and greet-"

"Trust me, Rose, it'll work; I've seen it," Alice said, looking at the vampire now identified as Rose with a straightforward intensity that Angel recognised as her equivalent of Willow's own 'resolve face'. "Look, if it doesn't work out, we can all go back to trying to tear through everyone with our bare hands; right now, I'm trying to find a way out of this that helps us stop the bad guy quicker!"

"Well, I'm game," Emmett said, grinning over at Alice before he turned to Illyria. "Shall we?"

"It is worth an attempt, at any rate," Illyria said, nodding grimly at the vampire.

"Right," Emmett said, reaching out to grab hold of Illyria's nearest wrist, followed closely by Rose and Alice taking a hold of the same arm. Acting as though on cue, the oldest two vampires and the thin fair-haired one grabbed hold of Illyria's other arm, leaving the vampire who reminded Angel of himself to take hold of Illyria's shoulders. No sooner had the last vampire taken hold of Illyria than she stretched out her arms and let out a loud scream, followed by her body and the surrounding vampires suddenly glowing with a brilliant gold light that reminded Angel of those rare occasions when he'd glimpsed Alice in the sunlight when they'd been travelling together. Before Angel had time to ask what was happening, Illyria had stretched out her arms- the vampires somehow moving their hands to hold on to Illyria's sides before Angel could register the shift- and opened a large rift in the air behind them, which began to generate a strange energy field that drew in the demons around them without affecting Angel, Alice, or their assorted allies.

"Just hold on!" Alice said, her voice only just audible over the chaos of the surrounding events. "We've got them now!"

Angel didn't entirely know what was happening, but he could see that something was taking place; even as he watched, the still-living demons in the middle of this alley were struggling against the pull of the portal that Illyria had generated, even as it pulled them into the black void within itself, starting with the smaller fighters and progressing to the larger ones. As some demons struggled to take hold of something around them, gripping onto the walls of the alley they had only moments ago been fighting in, the portal's pull grew increasingly stronger on the group's opponents even as it continued to 'ignore' Angel, Spike, Gunn and the source of its power, culminating in a final burst of brilliant golden energy as the entire alley suddenly seemed to be experiencing a moment of daylight at midnight, before everything went dark once again, leaving only the original four combatants and the seven new arrivals standing around.

"Oh, hello, Spike," Alice said, smiling briefly over at the other vampire as the other demonic vampire registered their presence.

"Who the bloody- _YOU_?" Spike yelled, jumping back from Alice in shock as he recognised her. "What the _sodding_ hell are _you _doing here, you-?"

Whatever else Spike would have said was cut off when the tall fair-haired vampire suddenly dashed forward and punched him in the face, glaring firmly at the other man.

"Don't talk about her like that," the Cold One said, glaring firmly at Spike.

"Check..." Spike muttered, rubbing at his sore jaw as he took in the new arrivals before he looked over at Angel. "What's with the-?"

"Can we put this discussion on hold until we have taken Mr... Charles Gunn, I believe his name is... to the hospital?" the vampire that Alice had identified as Carlisle said, picking up the human's still, bleeding body as he looked around at the others. "I've done what I can here, but he needs professional treatment before he gets any worse."

"Right," Angel said, nodding at Carlisle in agreement as he looked over at the others. "We've got a lot of questions, I'm sure, but we can't tackle this right now; let's get Gunn safe, and then we can talk."

* * *

><p>"So... Charlie's going to be OK?" Spike asked, the assorted vampires and the former Old One ruler sitting in the hospital waiting room a few hours later. Getting to the hospital had been relatively easy at the speed that the Cold Ones could move at, and when Carlisle had offered his services- Angel was surprised to learn that the other man was an officially-qualified doctor but had kept his mouth shut about it at the time; asking a vampire how he coped with blood in a hospital wasn't exactly something that it was easy to bring up-, the doctors had been willing to accommodate his request to assist the man he'd discovered after a 'violent mugging gone wrong'.<p>

"He's going to need extensive time recuperating, and I wouldn't recommend that he do anything overly physically strenuous for the next few months, but he should be fine, yes," Carlisle said, nodding reassuringly at Spike and Angel. "You're lucky I was able to get there in time; the amount of damage he'd sustained earlier..."

"It's not your fault, Angel," Alice said, looking firmly at her original mentor/brother as she noted his sullen expression. "Charles Gunn made his own choices, and he knew the risks that he was taking; you can't blame yourself for the fact that he was injured in the process."

"I know," Angel said, sighing after a few moments of contemplative silence. "But that doesn't make it any easier..."

Finally, he shrugged and looked at the other Cold Ones, deciding to attend to the most obvious question facing their new group. "So, I know Alice, but who are the rest of you?"

"Doctor Carlisle Cullen," Carlisle said, smiling reassuringly at the vampire as he held out his hand to shake it, studying the other man with a thoughtful grin. "It's nice to meet you at last, Angel; we've heard a great deal about you from Alice."

"Only in the last few days," Alice interjected, looking scoldingly at the other vampire.

"You really didn't mention me?" Angel asked, unable to stop himself sounding slightly hurt at that news.

"I didn't... I wasn't ready to share you yet," Alice replied at last, after a few moments of silence as though she wanted to think about what she was about to say to him. "The time we spent together was... it was _ours_; when you left, I... I knew you wanted privacy, and I wasn't going to break that without a good reason."

Angel could only smile gratefully at Alice's decision; even if she hadn't known _why _he'd left, she'd still respected him enough to give him the chance at solitude that he'd wanted...

"Hey, we all have our secrets," Emmett said, smiling in understanding at Alice. "Where's the fun in telling everyone everything right away?"

"Quite," Carlisle said, smiling over at the other vampire before he turned to indicate the other Cold Ones in the room. "We have already been told that your friends are Spike and Illyria; this is my wife Esme, and my adopted children, Emmett Cullen, Edward Cullen, Rosalie Hale, and-"

"Allow me," Alice said, turning to face Angel as she indicated the fair-haired vampire beside her with a smile broader than any she'd shown in her previous time with him. "Angel, this is my husband, Jasper Hale."

"Husband?" Angel repeated, looking at Alice with a slight smile even as he shook Jasper's hand. "You're married?"

"Actually, I met him when we... you know..." Alice said, looking at Angel an uncertainty that both saddened and relieved him; she might be upset that he'd left her so abruptly, but at least she didn't know all of the fine details of why he'd left the Hyperion like that (Alice's awareness of magic was significantly more limited than his; he wondered if his curse or his species gave him a greater awareness of it than she possessed or something like that).

"Right," Angel said, nodding reassuringly at Alice before he looked at Jasper. "So, you're treating her properly, right?"

"Wouldn't know how to do anything else," Jasper replied, a slightly Southern tone to his voice as he nodded in confirmation at Angel.

"Plus, he's an empath- you know, like I have visions, he can sense emotions?" Alice added, smiling at Angel as he nodded in understanding. "If he ever did anything I didn't like, he'd know how I felt about it before I even had a chance to say anything; if nothing else, it makes it _very _easy for him to know what to do to make me happy..."

"More than I needed to know, Alice," Angel said, smiling over at the younger vampire despite the slight apprehension he felt at the idea of meeting the man Alice loved; as an older sibling figure, there was a desire to protect her that would always come first, but there was also the fact that he'd been out of touch with Alice for over sixty years and didn't exactly have any valid reason to object to what Alice had been doing with her life...

"Y'know, as long as we're talking, what actually happened back there?" Spike asked, looking curiously over at the other vampires. "Y'know, with the glowing and the portal and all that stuff...?"

"I drew on the energy of these ones and used it to generate a portal to a realm of nothingness and pain," Illyria said solemnly.

"You used us as batteries?" Emmett said, looking at Illyria in surprise. "How'd that work?"

"I..." Illyria began, before her voice trailed off in confusion.

"You don't know because you never encountered something like that before," Alice finished for Illyria, shrugging slightly at the former Old One. "That's OK, I'm not that sure either; I just saw the vision, and..."

"I do have _one _theory," Angel said, looking over at Alice and Illyria with a slight smile.

"You do?" Edward asked, looking at Angel in confusion. "What is it?"

"Cold Ones are said to be direct descendents of the original vampire demons; they're... well, this is just a guess, but your race of vampire are probably the closest thing that Illyria has to a peer left on this Earth," Angel said, wishing he had more concrete evidence to draw on for that theory even as he knew that he was pressed for options and would just have to go along with what he'd picked up over the years. "Maybe, with all of you in contact with Illyria at once, their connection to the original vampires resulted in Illyria being able to draw on their energy and use it to supplant the powers that she'd lost?"

Illyria smiled.

"That... sounds plausible," she said, nodding in acknowledgement of the vampire's theory.

"We were batteries?" Edward said, looking sceptically at Angel.

"It's the best explanation I can come up with, anyway; I'll let you know if something else comes to mind," Angel said, shrugging as he looked at Edward. "It's not like we had time to work out the 'how' of this situation; Alice saw a plan, and we went for it."

Edward looked at Angel for a moment, and then he turned around and walked out of the waiting room.

"Don't mind Edward; he's just being petty and annoying because he can't read your mind," Alice said, shrugging briefly at Angel. "I keep telling him that it's pointless, but he just doesn't quite accept how different you are from us; he tends to be a bit... set in his ways, really."

"Ah," Angel said, nodding sympathetically at Alice as he looked over at Edward.

In a way, it was actually kind of strange to look at the other vampire; allowing for the obvious differences in skin and eye colour- to say nothing of him being somewhat taller and older than the other vampire-, he and Edward actually looked surprisingly alike...

"Hold on; mind-reading?" he said, looking over at Alice in surprise. "He can read minds?"

"Only the surface thoughts, anyway; he can tell what you're thinking in the moment, but that's about it," Alice said with a shrug. "I've told him what you told me about telepaths being unable to read the mind of your 'breed' of vampire because your thoughts don't cast reflections, but I don't think he really believed it until he met you, and now he's just being all emo and frustrated because he doesn't get you the way he's been able to get everyone else he's met since he was turned..."

"Guy needs some sense talked into him, huh?" Spike said, shrugging as he glanced after the other vampire. "Well, I suppose we all have our gits in the family..."

"I think it's the fact that you have your soul that he resents," Alice said, smiling over at Angel as she shook her head in frustration. "We've done what we can to talk to him, but he remains convinced that we're nothing but soulless monsters after we're turned; the fact that I can confirm you have your soul back isn't exactly helping him accept the idea that he kept his anyway..."

"Ah," Angel said, contemplating and discarding the idea of talking to Edward about that misconception; if Alice, with her seemingly inexhaustible enthusiasm, hadn't managed to make her point to Edward by now, Angel didn't know what he could do and wasn't in the mood to try and think of an argument himself.

Right now, he just...

"So," Alice said, looking at Angel with a smile, "what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know," Angel said, grinning over at his younger sister-figure as she voiced the question he'd just been asking himself, before he looked over at where Spike and Illyria were standing outside Gunn's room, anxiously waiting for more news of their friend's fate, the remaining five Cullens gathered around the waiting room as though trying to decide what to do with themselves next. "But I have a feeling it's going to be interesting finding out."

He had stood up to the Senior Partners and won the battle of a lifetime, and been reunited with his 'sister' and her new family into the bargain; it wasn't what he'd expected would happen when the battle was over, but he'd dealt a powerful blow against the most powerful beings of evil he'd ever encountered and he was still alive.

Wherever things went from here, he had a feeling it was going to be _very _interesting...

* * *

><p>AN 2: Well, that's the end of that story; hope you liked it!<p>

No plans for a sequel as of yet- I've got some other stories I'd like to work on first anyway-, but if anyone has any particular ideas, let me know and I might think about them...


End file.
